Star Tribune
Minneapolis police shot, injured man with projectile at bus stop during unrest
A recently filed lawsuit claims that a 56-year-old man was waiting for the bus — not protesting the police murder of George Floyd — when Minneapolis police fired a projectile at him from the Third Precinct roof.
More than three years later, the lawsuit contends, Abdi Edan Adam struggles with vision problems in his right eye and bears a conspicuous dent on his head. The math tutor living in Minneapolis said his injuries are “akin to the government-sponsored brutality he had sought refuge from in this country when fleeing Somalia.”
Attorney Paul Applebaum filed the lawsuit last week in Hennepin County District Court, but the case has since moved to Minnesota’s federal District Court. It seeks more than $1.5 million in damages from Minneapolis for violating Adam’s civil rights for excessive, unlawful use of force. The city, the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) and eight unnamed officers are listed as defendants.
Minneapolis has paid millions of dollars to settle claims of police brutality or officer misconduct in the aftermath of Floyd’s murder on May 25, 2020.
The day before protesters sent the Third Precinct up in flames, Adam, now 59, was in the vicinity of Minnehaha Avenue and Lake Street attempting to catch the bus home when he was struck, according to the lawsuit.
Applebaum in a statement said Adam was committing no crime and “utterly compliant.”
“What the MPD officer did was a grotesque use of unwarranted deadly force. Unfortunately, this episode was just another example of decades of abuse by the MPD against the citizens of Minneapolis.”
City spokesperson Casper Hill said in an email that the city is “declining any comment on this litigation at this time.”
According to the lawsuit, Adam was outside the precinct around dusk when the scene was calm. At the time, there was no order to disperse or curfew announced.
“Suddenly and without warning of provocation … officer John Doe 1 fired a rubber bullet, or 40 mm impact projectile, from the roof of the Third Precinct, striking Mr. Adam in the forehead,” the lawsuit reads.
No officials rendered aid to Adam. Instead, protesters took him to the hospital. He suffered a concussion, emotional trauma and medical bills, according to the lawsuit.
MPD and city officials said they supported peaceful protests, but at the same time police commanders and supervisors were authorizing “indiscriminate and unreasonable use of weapons against civilians,” the lawsuit maintains. Under MPD policy, officers are forbidden from deploying 40mm projectiles for crowd control purposes. Further, supervisors are required to respond any time one is used.
Officers violated MPD policy by not filing a use-of-force report. Had the report been filed, the identity of the shooter and witness officers would be known. The officers involved also had body-worn cameras. That video should have been included in the report.
Instead, supervisors turned a blind-eye and failed to hold officers accountable, the lawsuit claims. “[S]uch matters ensures that the Blue Wall of Silence remains intact.”
In findings released this summer, the U.S. Department of Justice determined that MPD routinely uses excessive force, fails to render aid to people against whom they have used force, and its inadequate review system contributes to a pattern of unlawful use of excessive force.
Applebaum referenced several other cases of civilians suffering similar injuries by MPD during the unrest, including Jaleel Stallings. Last year, Minneapolis paid Stallings $1.5 million in a federal lawsuit against the city and MPD for shooting him with a rubber bullet. When he returned fire at the unmarked van, not realizing they were police officers, he was beaten despite his immediate surrender.
Among other payments by the city:
Star Tribune
Trump denigrates Detroit while appealing for votes in a suburb of Michigan’s largest city
NOVI, Mich. — Donald Trump further denigrated Detroit while appealing for votes Saturday in a suburb of the largest city in swing state Michigan.
”I think Detroit and some of our areas makes us a developing nation,” the former president told supporters in Novi. He said people want him to say Detroit is ”great,” but he thinks it ”needs help.”
The Republican nominee for the White House had told an economic group in Detroit earlier this month that the ”whole country will end up being like Detroit” if Democrat Kamala Harris wins the presidency. That comment drew harsh criticism from Democrats who praised the city for its recent drop in crime and growing population.
Trump’s stop in Novi, after an event Friday night in Traverse City, is a sign of Michigan’s importance in the tight race. Harris is scheduled for a rally in Kalamazoo later Saturday with former first lady Michelle Obama on the first day that early in-person voting becomes available across Michigan. More than 1.4 million ballots have already been submitted, representing 20% of registered voters. Trump won the state in 2016, but Democrat Joe Biden carried it four years later.
Michigan is home to major car companies and the nation’s largest concentration of members of the United Auto Workers. It also has a significant Arab American population, and many have been frustrated by the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza after the attack by Hamas against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
During his rally, Trump spotlighted local Muslim and Arab American leaders who joined him on stage. These voters ”could turn the election one way or the other,” Trump said, adding that he was banking on ”overwhelming support” from those voters in Michigan.
“When President Trump was president, it was peace,” said one of those leaders, Mayor Bill Bazzi of Dearborn Heights. ”We didn’t have any issues. There was no wars.”
While Trump is trying to capitalize on the community’s frustration with the Democratic administration, he has a history of policies hostile to this group, including a travel ban targeting Muslim countries while in office and a pledge to expand it to include refugees from Gaza if he wins on Nov. 5.
Star Tribune
‘Take our lives seriously,’ Michelle Obama pleads as she rallies for Kamala Harris in Michigan
”We are looking at a health care crisis in America that is affecting people of every background and gender,” Harris told reporters before visiting the doctor’s office.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden went to a union hall in Pittsburgh to promote Harris’ support for organized labor, telling the audience to ”follow your gut” and ”do what’s right.”
Harris appeared with Beyoncé on Friday in Houston, and she campaigned with former President Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen on Thursday in Atlanta.
It’s a level of celebrity clout that surpasses anything that Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, has been able to marshal this year. But there’s no guarantee that will help Harris in the close race for the White House. In 2016, Hillary Clinton lost to Trump despite firing up her crowds with musical performances and Democratic allies.
Trump brushed off Harris’ attempt to harness star power for her campaign.
”Kamala is at a dance party with Beyoncé,” the former president said Friday in Traverse City, Michigan. Trump, the Republican nominee for president, is scheduled to hold a rally in Novi, a suburb of Detroit, on Saturday before a later event in State College, Pennsylvania.
Tired of hearing about north Minneapolis kids having to go trick-or-treating in the suburbs, business owner KB Brown started throwing a costume bash at the Capri Theater with the goal of bringing together families and the organizations that care for them.
Now in its fourth year, that Halloween party has become a stone soup of community organizations cooking out, roller skating and giving away tote bags of candy to tiny superheroes and princesses.
Elected officials, including state Rep. Esther Agbaje, DFL-Minneapolis, and Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Lunde, dropped in on the festivities Saturday to get out the vote in the final stretch of door-knocking season. KMOJ’s Q Bear DJed the party.
KB Brown and his grandson Zakari, 3. Brown founded Project Refocus, a nonprofit dealing with youth mentorship, security along the West Broadway business corridor and opioid response in the surrounding neighborhoods. (Susan Du/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Farji Shaheer of Innovative SOULutions provided a bounce house and inflatable basketball hoops. A violence intervention professional who offers community training on treating traumatic bleeding, Shaheer recently purchased land in Bemidji to redevelop into a retreat center for gun violence survivors.
He in turn invited Santella Williams and Dominque Howard to bring Pull and Pay, a former Metro Mobility bus retrofitted as a mobile arcade full of vintage games such as “NBA Jam” and “Big Buck Hunter.” The bus was a pandemic epiphany for Williams and fiancé Howard when they suddenly found themselves with four kids and nowhere to take them after COVID-19 shut everything down. Pull and Pay now shows up to community events throughout the North Side.
Pull and Pay owner Dominique Howard showed kids, squeezed elbow to elbow, how to play “Big Buck Hunter” inside his homebuilt mobile arcade. (Susan Du/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
“This is the first time I’ve been able to come through, but we figured we’d stop by check it out. It’s so perfect, and such a beautiful day,” said Shannon Tekle, a Northside Economic Opportunity Network board member attending with her two-year daughter, both of them dressed as monarch butterflies.
“North Side, we’re a big family,” said Brown, proudly toting his grandson Zakari (a 3-year-old Chucky with candy-smeared cheeks) on one arm. “Everybody here is from the community.”
Navy issues apology for destroying Alaska Native village in 1882
Trump denigrates Detroit while appealing for votes in a suburb of Michigan’s largest city
‘Take our lives seriously,’ Michelle Obama pleads as she rallies for Kamala Harris in Michigan
Navy issues apology for destroying Alaska Native village in 1882
Trump denigrates Detroit while appealing for votes in a suburb of Michigan’s largest city