First Sgt. Dror Altun, 29: Dancer, Yamam police officer was a new dad
Killed on October 7 battling the Hamas invasion of southern Israel
First Sgt. Dror Altun, 29, an officer in the elite Yamam counter-terror unit, was killed on October 7 battling the Hamas invasion of southern Israel.
Dror was home the morning of the attack, and was immediately called up to head to the front lines. He and his comrades arrived at the Sha’ar Hanegev Junction which was beset by Hamas gunmen.
They and other Border Police officers worked to repel the Hamas invasion but they were vastly outnumbered. Dror was slain there in battle alongside fellow Yamam officers Supt. Moshael Shlomo and Sgt. Maj. Bar Sivan.
He is survived by his wife Clil, their son Erez, his parents Avi and Ruti and his older brothers Omri and Yuval. He was buried in Misgav on October 9.
The youngest in the family, Dror was born and raised in Tzurit, a small town in the Western Galilee, according to a police eulogy.
From a young age he was fiercely independent and loved to be outdoors, his family said, including once sneaking out of kindergarten, arriving at home and climbing in through the window.
He played soccer with a local team from a young age, but also loved dancing, learning ballroom dancing and even taking ballet lessons. He performed around the country and even traveled abroad with his troupe to Brazil and South Korea.
Dror enlisted in the IDF in March 2013 and served in the Combat Engineering Corps. He completed a commander’s course and was about to start an officer’s course when Operation Protective Edge began, and he took part in the fighting in Gaza.
Afterward, he completed the officer’s course and was appointed as a platoon commander and later commander of the battalion’s reconnaissance unit.
In 2019, Dror joined the Israel Police, completing the rigorous training to serve in Yamam and later training as a sapper, becoming a deputy team commander.
Dror and Clil met in middle school and were quickly inseparable, becoming a couple at age 14. After Dror completed his army service, they traveled together to Tanzania to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and scale peaks in China, Nepal, India, and Thailand.
In 2020, Dror and Clil got married and in March 2023, their son, Erez, was born and Dror was devoted to being the best father possible.
“Dror worked to be better than the person he was yesterday and always wanted to cause the people around him to be better to themselves,” wrote Clil on Facebook ahead of Memorial Day 2024.
“Dror was a true friend. He wasn’t satisfied with polite friendships, he would ask how people were getting by financially, how their relationships were really going, their communication, how things were with the kids,” she said. “He always believed that everyone around him could achieve anything and infected them with that belief.”
Clil said that her husband “always told his friends yes. No matter if it was going out for a beer or helping move apartments. And he was a little brother, but the brother who calls his big brothers just to chat and forces them to go out together, and reminds them to call their parents.”
Dror was “the son who helped with the cooking for Shabbat. The grandson who always asked Savta questions so she could tell the stories he knew she loved to tell.” In addition to all that, she said, “he was a father and a partner, but on that, perhaps one day I’ll write a book.”
‘No Win’ for Minneapolis Police Caught Between Trump and City Residents
With the Trump administration accusing local police of dereliction and some in the community feeling unprotected, outnumbered Minneapolis officers find themselves facing difficult choices.
By Reis Thebault and Chelsia Rose Marcius
Reporting from Minneapolis.
The Trump administration has accused the Minneapolis Police Department of abandoning its beleaguered federal agents. Some city residents say they are the ones being abandoned, by police officers who are paid to protect them and have done nothing of the sort.
Even the police chief, Brian O’Hara, has taken sides, warning officers who don’t intervene when federal agents use excessive force that they will lose their jobs.
Caught in the middle are the 600 officers of a police force badly outnumbered by the 3,000 federal immigration agents who have swarmed Minneapolis and St. Paul, and whose actions have threatened to undo a half decade of work to re-establish the trust between law enforcement and residents that was shattered by the murder of George Floyd in 2020.
“It’s an almost no-win situation for them on the frontline,” said Janeé Harteau, the Minneapolis police chief from 2012 to 2017.
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The Minneapolis Police Department remains the largest in the state, but its leaders have battled a dire staffing shortage for years, exacerbated by Mr. Floyd’s murder, the riots that followed and the prosecutions of the perpetrators in uniform. Since President Trump launched his Operation Metro Surge, the department has been stretched thinner than ever.
Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis has said officers are overwhelmed. With both protesters and federal agents alike calling 911 for help, police across the region have struggled to respond. Police and union officials say morale has plummeted as officers find themselves caught between powerful political forces beyond their control.
“Both sides dug their heels in, and here we are in the middle of it,” said Mark Ross, president of the Saint Paul Police Federation, the capital city’s police union. “They are playing political football and we are the ones getting kicked around.”
Local leaders, activists and ordinary citizens have urged officers to intervene directly with federal agents whose behavior appears unlawful and to investigate them for possible criminal charges, especially after the deaths of two citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Officers are trying “to remain neutral,” said Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, a hard-charging liberal prosecutor. But, she added, “I don’t think it’s a neutral thing to be there watching unlawful behavior against your community and not do anything.”
Demonstrators have also pleaded for more protection from the Minneapolis Police Department, or M.P.D., an agency many of them have spent recent years stridently protesting and pushing to defund.
“M.P.D. should not be cleaning up Bovino’s mess by setting up police lines to keep protesters out of the area,” Simon Elliott, a community activist, said, referring to Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol chief who was leading the immigration surge until Monday, when he was abruptly reassigned to California.
Pressure is also coming from the Trump administration, which has demanded cooperation and collaboration from local law enforcement authorities. At a news conference last week, Mr. Bovino said local departments had “failed” because they had not responded to federal calls for assistance when protesters were “stalking” his agents.
“That’s what you call ‘missing in action,’” Mr. Bovino said. “When fellow law enforcement officers are in need, missing in action. Unconscionable.”
The open display of friction has left virtually everyone in the Twin Cities frustrated and worried about the future of public safety.
The region is just the latest testing ground for the relationships between police, residents and federal law enforcement. Similar strains surfaced in Chicago late last year, and over the summer in Los Angeles, the first city to weather a surge of immigration enforcement. But the scale of the Trump administration’s operation in Minnesota, the concentration of forces in a city the size of Minneapolis, the pushback from local leaders and the muscular resistance from residents have all raised the stakes.
And that was before the killing of two protesters by federal agents focused the world’s attention on the city’s streets. On Jan. 7, a federal agent fatally shot Ms. Good, 37, in the driver’s seat of her S.U.V., setting off furious protests in Minneapolis and across the country. Tensions escalated again on Saturday when federal agents gunned down Mr. Pretti, also 37.
The two deadly episodes, along with other displays of aggressive force by federal agents — including the shooting of a Venezuelan man and the arrest of a Hmong immigrant who was a U.S. citizen — have been “profoundly damaging,” said Mr. O’Hara the Minneapolis police chief.
If the offending federal officers are not stopped or held accountable, “the result is not public order. It is public fear,” the chief wrote in a Tuesday opinion piece for USA Today. “When fear eclipses trust, public safety suffers.”
Chief O’Hara’s threat, in an interview last month, to fire officers who fail to intervene when they see federal agents use excessive force stood in contrast to orders from other chiefs.
The chief of police in Bloomington, a suburb south of the Twin Cities, said his department must ensure the safety of residents and out-of-town federal agents. Bloomington officers might be called on to do crowd control, the chief, Booker Hodges, said, but directing them to intervene during immigration sweeps could put them in danger and spark a conflict that could quickly spiral out of control.
“If you go out here and arrest a federal agent, unless it’s something egregious, what do you think is going to happen next?” Chief Hodges asked. “I don’t want to start a civil war.”
Amid those conflicting signals, anger has simmered among federal authorities and some community members. Both sides have questioned what they say have been slow responses and a thin officer presence during clashes between demonstrators and federal authorities.
On Sunday evening, when protesters began vandalizing and pushing into a hotel where they believed federal agents were staying, a single Minneapolis police officer was on hand initially to try to calm the scene.
More officers eventually swarmed the building, but before they arrived, one federal agent, wearing a tactical vest marked Bureau of Prisons, could be heard on video shouting to reporters, “Where’s the local PD?”
Local law enforcement officials insist they are doing the best they can under difficult circumstances. Ms. Moriarty, the county attorney, called it unreasonable for federal agents to expect a local police presence wherever they meet protesters.
“Are they supposed to follow you around and be your personal bodyguard?” she asked. “ICE is creating this chaos, and yet when they create chaos, they’re demanding that local police show up immediately and help them get out of a situation they created.”
Hanging over this tug of war are fears about what comes next for the area’s law enforcement community. Will this latest period of strife erase the progress that local departments have made since Mr. Floyd’s murder? Will residents trust police after federal agents leave? Will staffing levels plummet once again?
Chief O’Hara has said the federal operation has already made the city less safe by eroding public faith in the justice system. But some local activists say there are key differences between the current moment and 2020, and they credit police for forming relationships with the communities they serve.
“We have built strong and meaningful friendships with officers — and with each other — and this has benefited our city,” said Aileen Johnson, who founded the group Minneapolis Neighborhood Safety Clubs in 2021 to help bridge the divide between residents and police.
In recent days, Ms. Johnson has been visiting city police precincts to deliver hot meals to weary officers and speaking with residents about the limits of the police department’s authority.
Cynthia Wilson, president of the Minneapolis branch of the N.A.A.C.P., said she believes many people by now understand the difference between local police and federal agents.
“At this point, our immediate disdain is with the Border Patrol and ICE, not so much our city police officers,” she said.
Still, she acknowledged, it will fall to local police and community members to pick up the pieces. She said that can’t be done until federal agents leave.
“Right now we’ve got to eat humble pie and wait,” Ms. Wilson said. “We’re under siege. What else are we going to do?”
Reis Thebault is a Phoenix-based reporter for The Times, covering the American Southwest.
Chelsia Rose Marcius is a criminal justice reporter for The Times, covering the New York Police Department.
Trump directs ICE to expand deportations in Democratic-run cities, including Los AngelesKABC logoLast updated: Tuesday, June 17, 2025 12:54PM +07Sunday Night SportsLiveStream Southern California’s News Leader and Original Shows 24/7LOS ANGELES (KABC) — President Trump is calling for even more expanded deportation operations in several major cities across the country, including Los Angeles.Trump in a social media posting called on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials “to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History.”The moves comes after large protests erupted in L.A. and other major cities against the Trump administration’s immigration policies.So far, it’s not known how exactly that will impact L.A. But Sunday, at the president’s directions, the Department of Homeland Security said it would pause most raids on farms, restaurants and hotels.The Trump administration has continued widespread immigration enforcement activities — with a reported goal of up to 3,000 deportations per day.The Los Angeles Police Department has arrested 575 people related to protest activity since they started earlier this month, police said Sunday, including 14 for looting.Last week, President Donald Trump deployed 4,000 California National Guard troops and 700 Marines to tamp down the disruptive demonstrations while the immigration raids continue.A federal court hearing is set for Tuesday to determine whether Trump or California Gov. Gavin Newsom will control future National Guard activity going forward. Newsom challenged Trump’s decision to federalize the Guard, an action U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco said in a ruling last week did not follow congressionally mandated procedure.His ruling was stayed by a three-judge appellate panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in response to a Trump administration notice of appeal, temporarily keeping the National Guard troops under federal control, at least through Tuesday.City News Service contributed to this report.Key HeadlinesJun 17, 2025, 7:37 AM +07Protester shot in the eye with rubber bullet at DTLA ‘No Kings’ rallyJun 17, 2025, 5:34 AM +07LA Mayor Karen Bass reduces curfew hours within downtown LAJun 17, 2025, 1:12 AM +07LAPD made no arrests Sunday night – a first since protests startedJun 16, 2025, 1:41 PM +07Trump directs ICE to expand deportations in Democratic-run cities, including LAJun 16, 2025, 2:03 PM +0735 curfew violation citations issued during DTLA ‘No Kings’ rally Saturday, few arrests: LAPDHere’s how the news is developing.109 UpdatesKABC logoJun 10, 2025, 4:59 AM +07SEIU President David Huerta released from custody on $50k bond following arrest during ICE raidCalifornia union leader David Huerta has been released from federal custody on a $50,000 bond.Huerta was arrested Friday while protesting immigration raids in Los Angeles. He’s the president of SEIU California, a powerful labor union.His arrest has become a rallying cry for union members nationwide and Democratic politicians who have called for his release.His release Monday came as marchers were moving through downtown after a rally by the SEIU.READ MORE: SEIU President David Huerta released from custody on $50k bond following arrest during ICE raidKABC logoJun 10, 2025, 3:21 AM +07700 Marines ordered to assist in Los AngelesA U.S. official confirmed 700 Marines from Twentynine Palms, California, have been ordered to assist in Los Angeles. They are expected to arrive over the next 24 hours.The Marines are from the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines at Twentynine Palms, California, whom U.S. Northern Command had said Sunday were on a “prepared to deploy status” if the Defense Department needed them.They will join 300 California National Guardsmen who are on Title 10 federalized active duty status in California. Those National Guardsmen were mobilized by Trump through Title 10 authorities and are under the command of U.S. Northern Command.”We’ll see what happens. I mean, I think we have it very well under control. I think it would have been a very bad situation. It was heading in the wrong direction. It’s now heading in the right direction,” President Donald Trump told ABC News’ Karen Travers.KABC logoJun 10, 2025, 2:10 AM +07Crews begin cleaning debris left behind by DTLA protests; LAPD reports dozens of arrestsCrews have begun cleaning debris left behind in downtown Los Angeles after thousands of people came out to protest the recent ICE raids in L.A. County.Monday morning has been calm and quiet after chaotic anti-ICE protests Sunday that saw cars set on fire, law enforcement firing non-lethal rounds and smoke bombs into crowds, leading to arrests and injuries. However, there is some concern from police that with several more planned protests Monday, this could lead to another day of more violence in the city.Overnight, video from AIR7 showed looting at a business near 6th Street and Broadway and at an Adidas store nearby. Another video also appeared to show looting at a T-Mobile store on S. Broadway.The Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reported Monday a total of 42 people arrested in connection with the protests.LAPD said that five officers were injured — three were treated at the scene and two suffered minor injuries.It was not immediately known if curfews would be enforced to help curb any violence.
