minneapolis pd – Techdirt (original) (raw)

If The Crime Rate Goes Down After Half A Cop Shop Quits, What Are We Even Paying For?

from the not-exactly-the-ROI-promised-by-bootlickers dept

Law enforcement agencies often command an outsized portion of city and county budgets. The argument for this expenditure is basically just Blue Line bullshit: without the police at full staff, surely every locality will descend into criminal anarchy.

That’s the argument but the facts don’t bear it out. There’s very little evidence that increased law enforcement spending results in lower crime rates. And when local law enforcement has abused the privilege to the point that an officer has been jailed for murder and the DOJ is moving towards securing a consent decree, it helps to ask what exactly we’re paying for.

Some of the most well-funded police departments in the nation are also the ones that are costing taxpayers millions of dollars a year to settle civil rights lawsuits if not actually spending even more tax dollars attempting to be less terrible in order to comply with consent decrees following DOJ investigations.

The Minneapolis PD managed to secure the attention of an entire nation after Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on a black man’s neck for nearly 10 minutes, handing out a highly symbolic death sentence to someone only suspected of passing a counterfeit $20 bill.

This led to nationwide protests, with the most vehement occurring in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The city burned. So did a police station. The DOJ opened an investigation into the Minneapolis PD. The DOJ’s findings showed a pattern and practice of civil rights abuse, turning Chauvin’s murder of a Minneapolis resident from an anomaly to an inevitability.

In response to nationwide protests against police violence, cops walked off the job. Some refused to perform their duties, despite being paid. Others were a bit more intellectually honest. They retired. In many cases, the retirement kickstarted a pension ensuring they’d never need to work again. But for other cops, the private sector suddenly seemed like a better deal, even though the private sector tends to demand far more accountability than the public sector.

Cop officials claimed the mass exodus of inadequate cops would embolden criminals. Not that anyone believed them. Law enforcement officials say the same thing about reform efforts, public records laws, DOJ consent decrees, and negative press. Basically, anything that doesn’t absolutely worship the ground cops walk on is treated like an invitation to anarchy.

But that’s all bullshit. Cops can’t be trusted to do their jobs competently. Cop officials can’t be trusted to get their facts straight. And, as this article by Radley Balko for the New York Times shows, a mass exodus of officers can’t even guarantee a spike in lawlessness.

The typical Golden Valley police officer makes a six-figure salary with good benefits. The city has almost no violent crime. It’s a good gig. Yet in just two years, more than half the department quit.

“I haven’t been on the job long enough to make any significant changes,” Chief Green said. “Yet we’re losing officers left and right. It’s hard not to think that they just don’t want to work under a Black supervisor.”

The interesting thing is that according to Chief Green, despite the reduction in staff, crime — already low — has gone down in Golden Valley. The town plans to staff the department back up, just not right away. “I’ve heard that the police union is cautioning officers from coming to work here,” Mr. Harris said. “But that’s OK. We want to take the time to hire officers who share our vision and are excited to work toward our goals.”

As Balko (and Chief Virgil Green) freely admit, Golden Valley is not representative of the nation as a whole. Sure, the antipathy shown to the town’s first black police chief is probably indicative of the nation as a whole, but Golden Valley is one of the richest suburbs of Minneapolis, which means the PD is definitely well-funded and crime rates are much lower than they are in surrounding areas.

That being said, the evidence shows even Golden Valley is paying far too much for its police department. Half the police force quit to avoid dealing with reform efforts and/or working for a black police chief. Despite walking off the job rather than confront difficulties of their own making, crime rates continued to decline. This means Golden Valley residents have been paying for at least twice as many cops as they actually need — a number that was never questioned until the Thin Blue Line dropped half its cumulative weight.

If this well-off suburb can survive this without a spike in crime, other areas can afford to shed officers without feeling each departing officer will generate a corresponding increase in criminal activity.

Officers routinely flood areas considered to be “high crime” just because the median income is lower and minorities are the majority. This seldom results in lower crime rates. But it does give cops a bunch of busywork that often involves racial profiling and rights violations.

Whenever cops are criticized, they claim that without their “valuable” “service,” the areas they police would devolve into lawlessness. But cops have been exiting in force following the latest round of nationwide protests and, for the most part, crime rates across the nation continue to decline. All of this shows cops can’t be trusted to estimate their own worth.

More cities should institute solid reform efforts and place the burden of proof on cops and their spokespeople. Chances are, the facts won’t back the outlandish claims made in defense of throwing good money after bad.

Filed Under: crime, golden valley, law enforcement, minneapolis pd, police

DOJ Releases Report On Minneapolis PD, Says It’s No Surprise This Problematic Cop Shop Produced A Murderer

from the broken-on-every-conceivable-level dept

Any investigative report of any police department in the United States composed by the DOJ’s Civil Rights division can be described as “scathing.” Bad cops doing bad things trigger these investigations, which invariably find evidence of biased policing, excessive force deployment, and a general disregard — if not actual disdain — for the people these departments are supposed to be serving.

This investigation of the Minneapolis PD was triggered by the rarest of occurrences: the murder conviction of Officer Derek Chauvin for spending nearly 10 minutes with his knee pressed to unarmed black man George Floyd’s neck — an act that would have been considered, at minimum, metaphorically reprehensible even if it hadn’t continued for three minutes after another officer informed Chauvin he could not detect a pulse.

Minneapolis burned, much like Los Angeles did thirty years ago following the brutal beating of a black man by white cops. Los Angeles is still overseen by terrible cops, showing it takes more than a few weeks of civil eruption to change the status quo. And, if history is any indication, it takes far more than a strongly worded report from the DOJ to change cop culture.

The system that emboldened Officer Chauvin to the point he was willing to take a life while being recorded by citizens still thrives. The DOJ report [PDF] makes it clear Derek Chauvin is no anomaly. He’s only the most visible symptom of a terminally ill system.

For years, MPD used dangerous techniques and weapons against people who committed at most a petty offense and sometimes no offense at all. MPD used force to punish people who made officers angry or criticized the police. MPD patrolled neighborhoods differently based on their racial composition and discriminated based on race when searching, handcuffing, or using force against people during stops. The City sent MPD officers to behavioral health-related 911 calls, even when a law enforcement response was not appropriate or necessary, sometimes with tragic results.

Overseeing the largest city in Minnesota (and one of its most diverse), the MPD has repeatedly failed to serve and/or protect. Instead, the past decade has been marred by acts of violence by officers that have only destroyed what little trust remains between the MPD and the people it’s supposed to be serving.

On May 25, 2020, MPD officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd in broad daylight and on camera. Three other MPD officers failed to save Mr. Floyd. Widespread protest followed in Minneapolis, across the country, and throughout the world.

George Floyd was one of several people whose death at the hands of MPD officers garnered heightened public attention in recent years. For example, in 2015, MPD officers shot and killed Jamar Clark, a 24-year-old Black man, triggering 18 days of protests, including an occupation of MPD’s Fourth Precinct station. In 2017, an MPD officer shot and killed Justine Ruszczyk, a 40-year-old white woman, while responding to Ruszczyk’s 911 call. In 2018, MPD officers fatally shot Thurman Blevins, a 31-year-old Black man, following a foot chase. In 2019, MPD officers shot and killed Chiasher Vue, a 52-year-old Asian man, during a standoff at his home. In 2022, an MPD officer shot and killed Amir Locke, a 22-year-old Black man, during a no-knock raid on an apartment.

The DOJ report runs 92 pages. And it depicts yet another law enforcement agency that considers itself to be above the law. Unjustified force deployment is MPD standard operating procedure. And when officers aren’t shooting people for startling them (i.e, the killing of Justine Ruszczyk), they’re endangering citizens and other cops just because they’ve been startled by man’s best friend while intruding on people’s personal property.

In another case, an officer created unnecessary danger when he shot two dogs in the back yard of a home in a residential neighborhood. At least two people were inside the home at the time, and the home was flanked on both sides by neighboring homes and other structures. The dogs did not present an imminent threat.

MPD officers view excessive force as a means to an end, no matter what that end might actually be. Rather than being far down the list of acceptable responses to encounters with uncooperative individuals, violence appeared the first, if not only, option considered.

De-escalation, if it occurred at all, was poor; officers shouted commands, gave multiple conflicting orders, demanded immediate compliance, or threatened force. Officers made tactical decisions that endangered community members and officers alike. Officers often used neck restraints on people who were accused of low-level offenses, were passively resisting arrest, or had merely angered the officer. And, most troublingly, officers used neck restraints on people who were not a threat to the officer or anyone else.

“Less-lethal” does not mean any less excessively violent.

From January 1, 2016, to August 16, 2022, MPD officers used their tasers 564 times and pointed or unholstered them 1,039 times. We reviewed a sample of these incidents. Many of those encounters involved people known to have behavioral health issues. In a significant number of encounters, the associated offense was non-violent or did not involve a weapons-related offense. Sometimes, the only charge was obstruction of process.

MPD officers couldn’t even restrain themselves when patrolling with DOJ ride-alongs. One incident detailed in the report says an officer tased a man for filming an accident scene, despite the fact he was complying with their orders to move away from scene.

The DOJ notes MPD officers are complaining about low morale and are concerned the department is unable to retain long-time officers. If this is how the MPD operates on a day-to-day basis, then it’s better off without officers like the one described below, who are far more likely to abandon ship rather than suffer through any minimal increase in accountability.

In another incident, an officer expressed no remorse after using excessive force against a restrained person. A white man experiencing a behavioral health crisis was handcuffed to a stretcher. The man spat on an officer, who slapped and punched him in the face. After the man had been transported to a hospital, the officer said on body-worn camera: “I’m really proud of myself; I only hit him twice.” The supervisor did not refer the officer for a misconduct investigation.

And so it goes for the rest of the report:

MPD Fails to Render Medical Aid to People in Custody

MPD Encounters with Youth Result in Unnecessary, Unreasonable, and Harmful Uses of Force

MPD Unlawfully Discriminates Against Black an Native American People When Enforcing the Law

MPD Unlawfully Retaliates Against People During Stops and Calls for Service

MPD Violates People’s First Amendment Rights

MPD Fails to Conduct Thorough, Timely, and Fair Misconduct Investigations

This is the policing that’s costing Minneapolis taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars every year. Violence inflicted for any or no reason. Bigotry pretending to be good police work.

MPD leadership has persistently encouraged using traffic enforcement and stops of “suspicious” people and vehicles as a way to reduce violent crime and get guns off the street. One MPD presentation we reviewed described traffic law enforcement stops as the “top tactic used by MPD for illegal gun recovery.” But only a small percentage of MPD’s traffic stops resulted in recovering guns. For example, in 2018, MPD conducted roughly 32,000 vehicle stops, but recovered only 97 guns—meaning just 0.3% of traffic stops resulted in MPD recovering a gun.

Moreover, from November 1, 2016, to August 9, 2022, MPD data showed no record of a citation or arrest of any kind for 71.7% of traffic stops. The burden of these stops fell most heavily on Black and Native American people. MPD stopped but did not cite or arrest Black people at 5.7 times the rate at which it stopped but did not cite or arrest white people, given their shares of the population. And Native Americans were stopped but not cited or arrested at 5.9 times the rate.

Having been forced to confront this internalized bigotry following the murder of George Floyd, officers simply decided to stop complying with their employer’s policies.

Starting in late May 2020, officers suddenly stopped reporting race and gender in a large number of stops, despite MPD policy requiring officers to collect the data. We estimate the percentage of daily stops with known race data recorded dropped from about 71% just before May 25, 2020, to about 35% afterwards, a drop of roughly 36 percentage points. This sudden decrease in MPD officers recording racial data continued throughout the next two years.

This is what this kind of cop culture (which is pretty much the same cop culture no matter where in the nation you are) gets you: cops who know they won’t be punished no matter what they do.

Some officers act as though they are unconcerned about being held accountable for even egregious discriminatory misconduct. For example, in late 2020, a woman called MPD to ask about a man she believed was putting flyers threatening Black Lives Matter supporters onto vehicles. She told us that the officer who answered said Black Lives Matter was a “terrorist” organization and stated: “We are going to make sure you and all of the Black Lives supporters are wiped off the face of the Earth.” He said, “I think you should file a complaint, and I want you to do it well, so let me spell my first and my last name so you get it right. Then I’ll give you my badge number.” The woman asked to speak to a supervisor, but the officer refused to transfer her or take her contact information. The woman filed a complaint the next day but was not interviewed for seven months.

It’s not someone “acting” like they are “unconcerned” about potential punishment. This is an officer who knows he had nothing to fear in terms of reprisal.

The Minneapolis PD is headed towards a consent decree, something meant to reverse years of negative cop culture but generally just means citizens will be shelling out tens of millions of dollars for negligible reforms. All the MPD needs to do is maintain the status quo until court orders expire and the city residents find something else to focus on. The only thing that can truly change the MPD is the MPD itself. And it’s made it this far without changing so why bother doing it now?

Filed Under: civil rights, derek chauvin, doj, minneapolis, minneapolis pd

Cop Actually Admits He Was Wrong To Brutalize A Man Who Thought He Was Being Assaulted By Criminals

from the cop-with-a-conscience dept

I don’t often highlight the things that cops do right. That’s for several reasons. First, I don’t think it’s worth applauding officers for managing to do their jobs without violating anyone’s rights. Second, I don’t think it’s cute when cops pull over people to give them Thanksgiving turkeys or aid and abet marriage proposals. That’s just hideous. And third, cops generally don’t go above and beyond too often, so there’s a limited amount of content to work with.

But I am going to highlight this because it’s so far out of the ordinary as to be noteworthy. Here’s Deena Winter with the details for the Minnesota Reformer:

“I am sorry,” former Minneapolis police officer Justin Stetson said Wednesday in a Hennepin County courtroom.

Stetson’s apology was a remarkable turn in a case that began nearly three years ago with police and prosecutors describing Stetson’s victim — Jaleel Stallings — as a would-be cop killer.

Also striking: Stetson’s admission, in a letter of apology to Stallings, saying his actions reflect a “deeper, historical and institutional problem with the Minneapolis police and how some officers have responded poorly to the urban communities.”

“I have realized there is a lack of trust in police, especially on the part of nonwhites, and that this lack of trust is foundationally related to interactions that individuals, like yourself, have had with particular officers, like myself,” he wrote. “The violence visited upon you that night has been felt by all our citizens.”

This is indeed out of the ordinary. Not only did the officer admit he was wrong, he admitted the department he worked for — as well as cop culture in general — was part of the problem. It’s the latter admission that’s more astounding: that it’s an institutional problem, rather than just a few “bad apples.”

The former officer was one of several Minneapolis PD officers who assaulted Jaleel Stallings while roaming the street in an unmarked van, casually popping off non-lethal rounds at anyone they happened to see on the streets during protests that erupted in the city following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.

They hit Jaleel K. Stallings, 29, a St. Paul truck driver, who says he didn’t know they were cops because they were inside an unmarked white cargo van with the police lights off. He thought they were real bullets. And, he says he was mindful of warnings earlier that day from no less than Gov. Tim Walz that white supremacists were roaming the city looking for trouble.

Stallings was not only brutalized by cops but charged with second-degree murder, first-degree assault, and second-degree riot. He fired off one round well over the top of the unmarked van. For that act of self-defense, he was beaten, even though he dropped his gun and laid facedown on the ground as soon as he realized they were police officers. For his innocent mistake, he was brutalized and jailed until a prosecutor — having viewed the officers’ body cams — dropped the charges that could have netted Stalling more than decade in prison.

The city of Minneapolis was not nearly as apologetic when it settled Stallings’ civil rights lawsuit for $1.5 million. The payout came coupled with the city’s refusal to admit guilt or take any responsibility for its officers’ actions on that night.

Now, as remarkable as former officer Stetson’s admission and apology are, there are several caveats that detract from its power.

The first is the settlement above, which has already absolved the city and the PD of any wrongdoing. It may be an implicit expression of guilt, but it’s not an explicit admission, which is what matters when it comes to holding the city and PD accountable in the future.

Then there’s the effect this admission has on the officer himself. His admission came with a plea deal on lesser charges, meaning that — no matter how sincere his statement might be — this rare admission of guilt was in the officer’s best interests.

The officer, who testified he beat Stallings so severely he wondered whether he had broken his own hand, pleaded to lesser charges to ensure he won’t face any jail time. That plea deal came coupled with some other stipulations, which also detract from the impact of his apology.

He must enroll in an anger management course; will never be allowed to be a Minnesota police officer again; cannot use firearms; and will serve 30 to 90 days of community service.

Being blocked from further law enforcement employment in Minnesota likely contributed to this admission of guilt. If he had an opportunity to return to the force, it’s unlikely Officer Stetson would have thrown himself and his employer under the proverbial bus while awaiting sentencing. Even if the court had not stipulated his ousting from state law enforcement work, his statement would have assured his inability to secure a law enforcement job.

Finally, there’s the point made by Stallings — the victim of this officer’s assault and the recipient of a $1.5 million settlement from the city:

Stallings noted he will have served more jail time than all the officers in the SWAT team combined.

That undercuts all of this. The only actually innocent person in this incident is the only person who spent any time in jail. There is no deterrent to officers like the belatedly regretful Stetson. And that means officers will continue to behave carelessly and casually violate rights because the odds of them actually being held personally accountable for their actions hovers near zero percent. It’s the policed that pay, not only in terms of the violence inflicted on them, but for the defense of those who engaged in this violence.

Thanks for the nice words, former Officer Stetson. But until we start hearing this more often and from officers not trying to dodge jail time, they’re almost as worthless as the pixels they’re printed on.

Filed Under: hennepin county, jaleel stallings, justin stetson, minneapolis, minneapolis pd, minnesota, self-defense

Minneapolis Limits No-Knock Warrants As Prosecutors Decide Cop Can’t Be Charged For Killing Amir Locke During A No-Knock Raid

from the cops-no-longer-able-to-create-the-danger-they-need-to-justify-killing-someone dept

On February 2, 2022, Minneapolis PD officers executed a no-knock raid on an apartment. Officer Mark Hanneman then summarily executed Amir Locke within seconds of his entry into the apartment.

The Minneapolis PD suggested Amir Locke had plenty of time to realize police officers were in the apartment. The body cam time stamps showed something completely different: officers making entry at 06:48:02 and Hanneman opening fire at 06:48:11.

It didn’t have to go this way. The Minneapolis PD was carrying out a warrant obtained by the St. Paul Police Department. The warrant obtained by the St. Paul PD was a regular warrant: one in which officers would have knocked and announced their presence. The Minneapolis PD decided it didn’t want to handle it that way and sought permission to perform a no-knock entry. When Locke reached for the weapon he legally owned, he was killed. Given the time stamps on the body cam recording, it would have been impossible for Locke to rouse himself from his sleep and be fully cognizant of the situation. The officers created the danger that allowed Officer Hanneman to kill Amir Locke.

But that’s the way the MPD does business. The Star Tribune reported that the MPD preferred to use no-knock warrants, even though those are supposed to be limited to extreme cases necessitating unannounced entry. According to the Star Tribune, since the beginning of 2022, the MPD had obtained 13 no-knock warrants and only 12 regular search warrants.

The MPD — which cannot seem to stop killing or steer clear of controversy — won’t have this option in the future. Or, at least, it won’t be able to maintain its absurdly high no-knock/regular warrant ratio.

The new policy prohibits Minneapolis police officers from applying for no-knock search warrants, which would allow them to enter a location without first knocking or announcing their presence. It also prohibits them from asking other agencies to “execute” a no-knock search warrant on their behalf, or executing them for other agencies.

There are, of course, exceptions to the new rule.

Officers can still apply for “knock and announce” search warrants — which would generally require them to wait 20 seconds before entering a location during daylight hours and 30 seconds before entering during nighttime hours (between 8 p.m. and 7 a.m.). Those requirements, however, can be waived if there are “exigent circumstances.” The city says officers may enter immediately “to prevent imminent harm or to provide emergency aid,” to prevent “imminent destruction or removal of evidence” (except narcotics), to prevent “imminent escape of a suspect” or when in “hot pursuit.”

So, not much of a change, really. This appears to be mostly how the MPD handled things before the policy change. The only thing that might limit the use of no-knock warrants in the future is the exemption of narcotics from the list of evidence that must be no-knocked to save from “immediate destruction and removal.” And, according to an MPD spokesperson, officers will still be able to make their own discretion to convert regular warrants to no-knock warrants during warrant service if they decide the unfolding situation can be described as exigent.

The more useful portion of the new policy requires the PD to develop and maintain a “public-facing, online dashboard” that tracks forced entries performed by officers, including no-knock warrants. This dashboard will include demographic info, time/date data, and whether or not officers deployed force against the residence or the residents.

Unfortunately, the Minneapolis PD won’t learn much from the Amir Locke tragedy. Officers seeking no-knock warrants may be slightly inconvenienced by the new rules governing no-knock warrants, but the policy, as written, doesn’t seem capable of deterring abuse of these warrants. And the officer who decided Amir Locke was a threat worth killing less than ten seconds after crossing the apartment threshold won’t be facing anything more than public damnation.

In a joint statement from the offices of Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, the prosecutors noted that Locke “should be alive today, and his death is a tragedy,” but that “the state would be unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt any of the elements of MInnesota’s use-of-deadly force statute.”

Unfortunately, this is how the law works. The MPD raid team told itself (and a judge) the situation would be dangerous — dangerous enough to justify an unannounced entry. The moment officers saw a person with a gun in their hand, the killing was lawful. In essence, the PD had its cake and ate it, too. It created the danger and then exploited it. When cops create their own danger, the public loses 100% of time, as Scott Greenfield points out:

Officer Hanneman was not unreasonable in believing that the sleeping guy in an apartment being raided under a judicially authorized no-knock warrant presented an imminent risk of death, and so he shot first and killed him. This is what the law permits, making a choice favoring police over the non-cop when the decision is made whether to pull the trigger. This situation is untenable. The outcome is bad. What it was not is criminal.

If the new rules for no-knock warrants even slightly reduce the MPD’s use of them, it will save lives. And that’s worth it, even if it’s clear the new no-knock rules are mostly window dressing that look like reform but hardly change anything.

Filed Under: amir locke, mark hanneman, minneapolis, minneapolis pd, no knock raid, no knock warrant

Behind Every Terrible Police Officer Is An Even Worse Police Union Rep

from the get-in-the-sea,-Bob-Kroll dept

The biggest impediments to serious police reform are the shields erected around them, preventing officers from being held responsible for just about anything. Officer Derek Chauvin, whose brutal killing of a black man has provoked a national civil uprising, may be criminally charged at the moment. But that’s no guarantee he won’t end up a cop again, even if he ends up convicted.

Whitewashing police misconduct is par for the course. Police unions — which have little in common with the labor unions that have put some employees on more equal ground with their employers — have ensured officers are extended a ton of extra rights to help them escape accountability for their abuses of power. The average perp is dragged downtown and sweated down by interrogators until they crack. The average cop accused of a crime usually has a day or two free from tough questions to get their story straight. They also have union-appointed legal reps at their disposal and a contractual burial of paperwork detailing their previous misdeeds. Should they manage to somehow get fired, they head directly into arbitration, arguing for their reinstatement against city officials who have to work with at least one arm legally tied behind their back.

The Minneapolis PD is no exception. Its union is powerful. And it’s led by someone on par with those fronting the NYPD’s police unions — the unions that have routinely disparaged the public, the press, and city leaders for daring to criticize any officers’ actions.

Police Officers Federation of Minnesota leader Bob Kroll may not be as nationally famous as Pat Lynch or Ed Mullins. But he is locally infamous as the face of police misconduct — a man who aligns himself with President Trump and his glorification of cops and their violence. Melissa Segura has written a piece about Bob Kroll’s involvement in making the Minneapolis PD worse (along with the general terribleness of police unions), but my first exposure to Bob Kroll’s awfulness came via a St. Paul (MN) native and former coworker/current friend of mine, who’s living only miles away from the epicenter of the current civil unrest.

As is pointed out by my friend and BuzzFeed, the city tried to curb the baser instincts of officers by steering them away from training that teaches them to treat everyone they run into as a violent threat. For years, a former cop has been traveling the country putting officers into the “warrior” mindset, delivering hideous guidance and advice, like promising officers the best sex they’ll ever have will follow their killing of a citizen.

More than a year before a Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, pinned George Floyd to the ground in a knee chokehold, Mayor Jacob Frey banned “warrior” training for the city’s police force.

Private trainers across the country host seminars, frequently at taxpayer expense, teaching “killology” and pushing the notion that if officers aren’t willing to “snuff out a life” then they should “consider another line of work.” Frey explained that this type of training — which has accompanied the increasing militarization of the police over the last few decades — undermined the community-based policing he wanted the city to adopt after a string of high-profile killings in the region.

But then the police union stepped in.

The Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis worked out a deal with a company to offer warrior training. For free. For as long as Frey was mayor.

Steering clear of training that exacerbates current law enforcement issues would have a positive effect on cops and their relationship to the people they serve. But that’s unacceptable, according to the Minneapolis police union and its leader. Instead, Kroll sends cops out on the union’s tab to partake in particularly toxic masculinity, allowing them to fully embrace the worst aspects of their personalities as some sort of law enforcement “tool.”

Every dues-paying cop knows the benefits of this relationship. It means they have an always-available legal defense fund they can dip into. They know their trail of destruction cannot be used against them during current investigations. And they know the public can do almost nothing about, since police unions tend to wield more power than their oversight, whether it’s city governments or independent oversight boards.

While we understand law enforcement agencies are arms of the city governments they ostensibly serve, we also expect them to — at least publicly — maintain some sort of political agnosticism. We don’t want cops pulling us over because we’ve bumper-stickered our support for candidates they don’t like across the back of our cars. We also want to believe they’re not aligning themselves with any ideology that might result in inequitable treatment of the policed. That ship has sailed, ladies and gentleman. The cops in Minneapolis have boldly — and very publicly — said they’re solidly supportive of the powers that be.

The Minneapolis chapter sold “Cops for Trump” T-shirts on its website, and national police unions have publicly endorsed Trump.

This followed another public endorsement of Trump by union leader Bob Kroll, who appeared onstage with Trump during a rally.

Kroll, the president of the Minneapolis Police Federation, wore a bright red “Cops for Trump” T-shirt, and spoke at Target Center about how the president supports police departments across the country as they face scrutiny following years of high-profile police shootings.

_“The Obama administration and the handcuffing and oppression of police was despicable,” Kroll said. “The first thing President Trump did when he took office was turn that around … he decided to start let cops do their job, put the handcuffs on the criminals instead of (on) us._”

And, as if Kroll’s relationship with the public wasn’t screwed up enough, there’s another aspect to his life that suggests some of the local press may be hesitant to engage in criticism of the Minneapolis PD. Kroll will offer controversial (or bigoted) comments on just about anything that happens to mildly annoy him. But he won’t talk about being literally married to the local press.

[Kroll] came under fire after reportedly suggesting that then-U. S. Rep. Keith Ellison was a terrorist. Another time, he was suspended after being accused of using a homophobic slur about a gay aide to former Mayor R.T. Rybak. Both episodes, which Kroll continues to deny happened as reported, were cited in a 2007 federal lawsuit brought by five black officers, including Arradondo, as examples of institutional racism within the department’s ranks.

Like many cops, Kroll keeps his private life private, particularly his marriage to WCCO-TV reporter Liz Collin. He refused to discuss the subject — going as far as saying he’d no longer talk to the Star Tribune if it reported they were married. He said he was concerned it would negatively affect her career.

Kroll runs an organization that wields more power than the people charged with controlling the officers he represents. The negative pasts of cops are wiped away by boilerplate. And since an officer’s past can’t be used against them during current investigations, fewer and fewer complaints end up sustained as time goes on. The internal investigation process is self-defeating, thanks to the union’s intervention.

Minneapolis’s contract, similar to others, states that “investigations into an employee’s conduct which do not result in the imposition of discipline shall not be entered into the employee’s official personnel file.” Translation: Since only around 1% of complaints adjudicated since 2012 have resulted in an officer being disciplined, city records show, most complaints will be erased.

There are shades of qualified immunity (another large impediment to police reform) in the union contract. If complaints can’t be sustained — and an officer’s pattern of conduct rendered irrelevant — it makes it almost impossible for investigators to prove any misconduct was either part of a pattern or previously shown to be a violation of policy.

“Because the city never disciplines anybody, any discipline is inconsistent with past practice,” [activist Dave Bicking] said, referring to the common practice of basing decisions on past precedent. “You can’t discipline now because you’ve never disciplined before. It’s a real Catch-22.”

The end result is an officer killing an unresistant person in broad daylight in front of several cameras while three other officers joined in. This is why no officer moved to stop Chauvin from performing his dangerous restraint technique, even after it had already determined George Floyd was no longer responsive and no pulse could be detected.

If you want to change policing, you have to start with the entities that allow officers to indulge in their worst excesses. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear any city is strong enough to stand up against police unions. Playing hardball with contracts makes city leaders appear soft on crime and most tend to steer very clear of anything that might provoke a strike or work slowdown. But it appears other unions — ones whose worst excesses rarely result in their employees killing other people — are sick of police unions and their bullshit.

“Bob is the president and what I believe is he really perpetuates a culture of violence towards people of our community, members of the black community and really all people of color,” said Bill McCarthy, president of Minnesota AFL-CIO, which represents thousands of workers across the state. “He’s setting the tone, he’s setting this culture of violence against his citizenry among the ranks and so he needs to go.”

[…]

Education Minnesota, the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers and Education Support Professionals, AFSCME Council 5, SEIU Minnesota, and the Minnesota Nurses Association have now all issued their own statements in support of the AFL-CIO.

This may possibly end with Bob Kroll resigning or being forced out. But the union will remain. And Kroll’s replacement will likely be someone just as willing to shield officers from their destructive acts. Until that entity is gone — or rendered mostly powerless — the abuses that have set this nation on fire will continue.

Filed Under: bob kroll, killology, minneapolis pd, police, police unions
Companies: police officers federation of minnesota

Minneapolis PD Issues Questionable DMCA Notice To Bury Its Controversial Recruitment Video

from the the-system-works/fails-again dept

The only way to make “bad optics” surrounding a questionable recruiting video vanish is to make the bad video vanish first, right? That’s obviously what the Minneapolis Police Department believes. It has nuked its controversial recruiting video from DMCA orbit, netting citizen journalist Wedge Live a copyright strike for preserving something the MPD would rather just went away.

Twitter user Tony Webster pointed out the end result of the MPD’s efforts, which removed the video formerly located here (Update: as this story started to get press attention, it appears that the Minneapolis PD has rescinded its takedown).

Fortunately for us — and less fortunately for the MPD — the video has been uploaded to Vimeo by Wedge Live, where it presumably awaits another questionable DMCA takedown notice from the police department.

The MPD used to be quite proud of its video, until it generated some complaints about its aggressive imagery. The video opens with two poorly thought out shots. In one, a man in military gear pointing an assault rifle morphs into an MPD officer… carrying an assault rifle.

The other shows a female beginning to throw a softball, which then morphs into a female police officer… pointing a gun at the camera.

Neither of these opening shots do much to set the stage for the rest of the video, which is the usual assortment of talking heads and officers-in-action shots after that point. Nonetheless, the MPD does not host the video at its own YouTube channel, and on July 13 removed its link to the video from its own recruitment page.

The archived version contains a link to the video. (And the link still works, but it’s not hosted at YouTube.)

The updated version does not.

If it wasn’t for the MPD’s efforts to remove all traces of the video, this might have been chalked up to just a misguided effort to flex copyright muscle over something that was created with public funds and should, generally speaking, belong to the public, rather than the police department.

But, considering the MPD has removed the link from its own webpage, it looks a whole lot more like an agency abusing the DMCA takedown system to remove something it considers to be less-than-flattering, especially in light of the Philando Castile shooting — in which an officer killed Castile for attempting to produce the ID the officer had just asked for. Castile was carrying a gun, but had a concealed carry permit and had informed the officer of the fact. When he reached for his ID, the officer shot him four times. The aftermath of the shooting — as Castile died in his car next to his girlfriend and her daughter — was streamed live to Facebook.

So, it’s not surprising the MPD would want its recruiting video to vanish, seeing as it opens up in an aggressive and militarized manner. Unfortunately, the web doesn’t forget just because the DMCA process has been abused. The MPD will have to live with its poor decisions for much longer than it planned to.

Filed Under: censorship, copyright, dmca, minneapolis, minneapolis pd, police, recruiting video