Witnesses allege police misconduct at north Mpls.
Elks lodge
Witnesses said they were targets of epithets, rough treatment by
Minneapolis police.
The 911 calls from Elks Lodge 106 in north Minneapolis came after a man
overturned tables, threw punches and pulled out a knife.
Minneapolis cops also heard that someone had fired shots.
So they stormed the Plymouth Avenue club near midnight on April 21 with
guns drawn, ordering dozens of people out and others to get down on the floor.
But in the process of finding the perpetrator and checking for weapons, some
say that white officers acted improperly in a crowd of middle-age, black
attendees.
Seven witnesses shared their concern with the Star Tribune in separate
interviews. Four of them said they heard officers use racist epithets, and six
said they experienced or saw officers use excessive force.
Witness and civil rights activist Ron Edwards said he mailed a complaint
Thursday to the internal affairs unit of the police department.
Sgt. Steve McCarty, a police spokesman, neither confirmed nor denied the
allegations and said police would investigate any complaints filed about the incident.
"If there are [reports of] shots fired inside of a crowded Elks
hall, the police are going to come with their guns out," he said.
"Until they find out if there's a gun or not, they're going to put people
on the ground and search people."
Still, he said, there are "very few circumstances" that would
justify police kicking people on the ground.
McCarty said police had evidence that shots were fired inside the club,
though no weapon was recovered; witnesses interviewed by the Star Tribune said
no gun was fired.
No one accusing the police of rough treatment suffered serious injuries.
Witnesses at that night's 1970s-themed birthday party said that a man
began disrupting the celebration, knocking over food and furniture and starting
a fistfight. Community activist K.G. Wilson said that when he tried to break it
up, the man pulled a knife and slightly wounded him in the chest.
The Fourth Precinct station is a fifth of a mile down the street, and
the department assigned 46 squad cars to the scene at 11:21 p.m. The officers
ordered the crowd in the basement to get out. Other cops stormed into a second-
floor room.
Wilson and two witnesses told the Star Tribune that they didn't observe
any police misconduct. "Police did their job, and they did it well,"
Sonji Lynn Kennedy said.
But Mishelle Howard said as a crowd was rushing down the stairs to
leave, a police officer said they were not moving fast enough. She said he told
them to get out and used a vulgar racial epithet.
Witnesses said police entered the second floor with guns drawn looking
for a perpetrator in a brown shirt, though the suspect was wearing a red shirt.
Dwayne Williams was wearing a brown shirt and trying to bring the
stabbing suspect under control. But police pushed Williams into a table that collapsed
and put a gun in his face, he said.
Witnesses Lisa and Mark Miller, Tom Powell and Edwards supported that
account.
Police ordered everyone on the ground. Lisa Miller, the highest-ranking
woman in the lodge, said they told someone nearby, "Lay your black ass
down."
Powell, 59, said he tried to explain to police that they had grabbed the
wrong guy when they ordered him down, too.
As he tried to speak while on the ground, he said, officers kicked him,
stomped on his legs and back, and told him to shut up.
Witnesses said police demanded to know where the gun was. Eventually
they arrested Tony Hallmon, 51 -- the only person charged -- for the assault on
Wilson.
Rickey Jones, who was hired to film the party, said police officers
pulled him into a room and seized his camera equipment and cellphone for
evidence. One of the officers in the room said they would "lock his black
ass up" if he didn't turn over the equipment, he said.
The city approved a $15,000 settlement for Jones, 53, in 2010 after he
sued the police over a 2002 incident in which he alleged that they took his
equipment while he was at a party and beat him.
Edwards, 73, said that a police officer on the second floor jabbed his
forearm into his collarbone, kicked him and used vulgarities and racial
epithets.
Had enough?
Write to the Speaker of the House, U.S. House of Representatives,
Washington, DC 20515 and demand federal hearings into the police problem in
America. Demand mandatory body cameras for cops, one strike rule on abuse, and
a permanent DOJ office on Police Misconduct.