By Deena Winter, Minnesota Reformer
Recently released city documents, first reported by the Star Tribune, show at least a dozen Minneapolis police officers were disciplined for misconduct in the days of demonstrations and rioting following George Floyd’s May 2020 police killing.
Many more left the department before investigations into their conduct were complete, short-circuiting the process.
Here are five takeaways from the discipline dump:
1. We may have never known what really happened to Jaleel Stallings if he hadn’t been able to hire a good attorney.
MPD’s response to Jaleel Stallings’ curfew violation was botched from beginning to end:
SWAT team Unit 1281 was instructed to “f*** up” anyone they saw out past curfew on May 30, 2020. The SWAT team joked and laughed as they punctured vehicle tires, mocked demonstrators and fired rubber bullets at people. They made racist remarks, derided the press and celebrated direct hits with their rubber bullets.
Traveling in an unmarked, white van around Lake Street and 14th Avenue, they immediately fired at people standing in a parking lot, striking Stallings, who fired back with his pistol, thinking they were white supremacists with real guns. Stallings, an Army veteran with a gun permit, said he purposely missed to try to scare them off.
But when the officers piled out of the van yelling “shots fired,” Stallings dropped to the ground, and put his arms out, to surrender. Two officers beat him for about 30 seconds anyway.
Another man who’d been standing near Stallings, Virgil Jackson Jr., was beaten and shocked with a Taser for two minutes.
And yet, Sgt. Kevin Angerhofer — who oversaw all SWAT teams that night — failed to do any of the things a supervisor is supposed to do after police use force: He failed to review their use of force on the scene, and the SWAT team was sent home for the night. He didn’t alert Internal Affairs or command staff that their use of force may have been unreasonable.
Several days later, after Internal Affairs notified Angerhofer that the review had not been completed, he did an abbreviated report that he described as “checking a box.” He was suspended for 60 hours for it.
Even after Stallings was tried and acquitted, MPD didn’t begin an internal investigation until after the Minnesota Reformer published a Sept. 1, 2021 story about Stallings’ acquittal on eight charges, including attempted murder of police officers.
Without Jaleel Stallings’ attorney Eric Rice’s successful defense of Stallings, none of the officers involved in Stallings’ brutal Lake Street beating would’ve ever faced consequences.
2. Interim Chief Amelia Huffman disciplined many of these officers in August 2022.
Huffman temporarily filled in as chief in December 2021 after former Chief Medaria Arradondo retired.
She pushed to hire dozens of police officers and partner with other agencies to fight crime. But her tenure was quickly overshadowed by the February 2022 police killing of Amir Locke, 22, after a no-knock warrant in search of a murder suspect.
City discipline documents show Huffman signed off on discipline for multiple officers nearly two years ago:
. Justin Stetson was fired for using unreasonable force on Stallings when he fired rubber bullets at him and then repeatedly hit him in the head and face for some 30 seconds, even though Stallings did not resist arrest.
. Kristopher Dauble was suspended for 40 hours for using unreasonable force on pedestrians — firing rubber bullets at them — one block east of the Stallings incident, saying he thought they had looted a boarded-up building. But body-camera video did not show they were involved in any activity that would justify such force; in fact, some of the people appeared to simply be walking down a sidewalk.
. Michael Osbeck was suspended 40 hours for using unreasonable force against Stallings and Jackson, kicking Jackson twice in the hip even though four officers had control of Jackson, with one shocking him with a Taser him as he lay on the ground.
. Tyler Klund was suspended for 120 hours for not turning on his body camera video and for using unreasonable force by kicking Stallings even though two other officers were already arresting him. Then he knee-dropped Jackson’s hip and punched his head several times even though other officers were already “engaging” with Jackson. Klund told investigators “Once I heard gunshots directed toward our team I feared for my life and my partners. My sole focus was to quickly locate and arrest the suspect(s) before any officer got hurt.
. Michael Pfaff was suspended for 80 hours for using unreasonable force and failing to activate his body camera as he responded to the Stallings incident. He stunned Jackson with his Taser, and Tased the man nine times in 54 seconds, even though two officers were already arresting him.
“Nine repeated applications was unreasonable on its face,” Huffman wrote.
We only learned about Huffman’s discipline decisions recently because it’s not released to the public until the full grievance process — in which the police union can appeal decisions — is complete. And even then, the documents are heavily redacted.
3. Former Police Chief Medaria Arradondo fired an officer for pepper spraying a reporter.
Sgt. Ronald Stenerson, a longtime officer, was fired in April 2021 after pepper spraying a Vice News reporter who had his hands up and was yelling, “Press!” earlier the night the Stallings incident occurred, May 30, 2020. A SWAT team member had pushed the reporter to the ground, and as he lay there, with his press card raised, Stenerson sprayed him in the face and walked away. Other body camera videos showed he’d sprayed others before that.
City documents say Stenerson admitted he did it, didn’t document it and didn’t activate his body-worn camera before or afterward.
4. Leaving the force turned out to be the right move for a number of officers
Sgt. Andrew Bittell was a central figure in the Stallings incident, and yet because he left the force, he came away largely unscathed.
Meanwhile, Officer Justin Stetson pleaded guilty to felony and gross misdemeanor charges, and was sentenced to 15 days in the county workhouse, ordered to pay a $3,078 court fine, and barred from serving in law enforcement again.
Stetson did most of the damage, and was the only officer charged even though about a half-dozen officers were involved. Bittell has never been charged with a crime.
But he was the leader of the SWAT team in question, and before their white, unmarked cargo van drove down Lake Street that night, Bittell told the unit, “Alright, we’re rolling down Lake Street. The first f***ers we see, we’re just hammering ’em with 40s” — referring to 40mm launchers or rounds, or rubber bullets.
Earlier that night, Bittell punctured the tires of vehicles, instructing his officers to puncture two tires because people could easily change one flat tire.
He ordered the white cargo van’s squad lights to be turned off as they slowly rolled down Lake Street. As the van approached a gas station. Bittell said, “Let ’em have it boys!”
“Right there, get ’em, get ’em, get ’em, hit ’em, hit ’em!” he ordered as the officers fired their plastic bullet launchers without warning. They later learned they were shooting at the gas station owner, neighbors and relatives guarding the station from more looting, as well as the Vice News reporter.
Then they moved on to where Stallings and others were standing, and immediately fired at them. After Stallings fired back at the van, Bittell kneed and punched Stallings in the stomach, chest and back for about 30 seconds. Midway through the beating, Stetson told Stallings to put his arms behind his back, and after handcuffing him, Bittell sat him up and kicked him in the ribs as Stetson continued hitting him in the head.
Even after Bittell told Stetson to stop hitting Stallings, he continued until Bittell grabbed his hand and said, “It’s OK.”
Like other officers, Bittell left the force before he could be disciplined for misconduct. Several retired early, some claiming a disability, and are getting pensions now, as well as workers’ compensation settlements from the city.
Although in October, the Minneapolis City Council finally had enough, and rejected a $145,000 workers’ comp settlement with Bittell. It’s now in litigation, and could end up costing the city even more money.
5. All of this takes far too long.
Much of this misconduct happened in the days after Floyd’s murder in the spring of 2020. That was nearly four years ago.
The fact that we haven’t seen any final action on these misconduct complaints until now is more proof of what the Reformer reported in 2020: The city is very bad at getting rid of bad cops in a timely fashion.
As Max Nesterak reported at the time, department leaders are often blind to numerous warning signs of problem officers; managers are often unaware their subordinates are being investigated for misconduct; city data on misconduct is often disorganized and contradictory; and very rarely are officers disciplined.
Because of a backlog, investigations can take years, and discipline decisions aren’t public until all appeals have been exhausted. So the public doesn’t know what became of those officers who sprayed protesters or beat curfew violators for years — and that’s only if the officers involved don’t resign, which ends the investigation.
What’s unknown are how many officers were directed to what MPD calls “coaching” after the riot response.
Coaching is an alternative to discipline, and because it’s not officially discipline, there’s no public record of it. MPD has in the past used coaching to resolve serious complaints like assaulting a teenager for shoplifting..
The Minnesota Coalition on Government Information is suing the city of Minneapolis to make coaching records public.
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