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New report highlights payouts for police mistakes
No statewide database exists showing how much agencies across the state pay to settle claims based on errors by law enforcement officers.
ST PAUL, Minn. — Cities, counties and state agencies in Minnesota have spent tens of millions of dollars settling claims of officer misconduct, but the exact number is elusive because there’s no statewide reporting requirement for such settlements.
That’s the finding of The Price of Injustice, a new report by Hamline University political science professor David Schultz. He set out two years ago to try to get a clearer picture of how much taxpayers have been asked to pay for errors by law enforcement.
“There’s no state database that reports this. There’s no national database,” Schultz explained. “And after George Floyd was murdered, I kept getting these calls from a lot of reporters asking where’s all this data collected. I said there is no place. It’s not being collected.”
The City of Minneapolis maintains an online officer conduct payout dashboard that includes the total dollars paid, as well as breakout charts detailing the cases. But getting a grip on the statewide payout picture required reeling it in from hundreds of sources.
Schultz worked with a group of his college students and the nonprofit Public Record Media to start the gathering process. They sent data practices requests to 239 different statewide and local governmental entities, focusing on cities above 5,000 population, counties, Metro Transit, and the State Patrol.
“In that group, 70 percent reported zero payouts over conduct, while 30 percent had made those payments. We found approximately 500 situations we found across the state of Minnesota in which municipalities, governments paid out for police misconduct.”
Minneapolis, the state’s largest city, led the pack, with 177 payouts during that time period, followed by Bloomington, which reported 126, and St. Paul with 47.
“This report is neither pro-police or anti-police. For people who are pro police they can come back and say over a 10-year period only 495 over millions of interactions is pretty good. For people who are, let’s say anti-police and want reforms, they could say 495 there’s some problems here.”
Schultz’s team came up with a grand total of $160,784,822 in payouts across that 11-year time frame, with $136,535,708 from Minneapolis.
The request focused on the period between Jan. 1 of 2010 and Dec. 31 of 2020 so it does not include the City of Minneapolis’s $27 million payout to the family of George Floyd in 2021.
It does include the city’s $20 million settlement with John Ruszczyk, the father of Justine Damon Ruszczyk. She was shot to death by an MPD Officer in 2017 after calling 9-1-1 to report an attack in her southwest Minneapolis neighborhood.
The City of Minneapolis disputed Schultz’s total, citing the city’s dashboard which showed a tally of $36,535,708 — exactly $100 million lower than the Schultz report’s figure.
As of Wednesday evening, Schultz was still trying to determine where the math went wrong. He said even if the actual figure is $36 million for Minneapolis out of $60 million statewide it’s still more information than had been compiled before.
“This is what came up when we did the numbers several months ago. We tripled checked it. Was there a glitch in the system? Was there a mistake? Was here an inputting error? There very well could be.”
“I would love people to sort of say here’s stuff we found you didn’t find, or here’s mistakes, etcetera, etcetera. I confess and say this is the first crack at a project that took more than two years to gather.”
Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges said the report is misleading because the list of 126 incidents his city provided to the researchers included many property damage claims rather than excessive force cases and other blatant misconduct.
“If you look at the data 53 of those claims resulted in no payments to claimants,” Hodges said in a video statement posted to YouTube.
“Furthermore, the majority of those claims were not allegations of misconduct, meaning they were not allegations we were out there using force on people. The majority of those claims for damage to property and autos.”
He cited an example of officers breaking down a door to reach a woman who was having a medical emergency, something that doesn’t come to mind when people talk about police misconduct.
“Accurate data is key. This report, unfortunately does not provide an avenue to do that,” Hodges remarked. “Our officers go out here every single day and demonstrate respect.”
Wadena-Deer Creek head coach Kyle Petermeier told families in a letter that a rash of injuries has reduced the roster to the point that playing is a “safety issue.”
WADENA, Minn. — A central Minnesota high school is pulling the plug on the remainder of its varsity football season, saying continuing to play would not be “safe or realistic.”
Wadena-Deer Creek head coach Kyle Petermeier sent a letter home to families earlier in the week, explaining the decision to skip the Wolverines’ final game and subsequent district playoffs. Petermeier said injuries began piling up as the club reached midseason, and roster numbers hit a dangerous low following Wadena-Deer Creek’s game in week 7.
Heading into the final regular season game against Staples-Motley, Wadena-Deer Creek had just eight healthy players from 10th to 12th grade. At that point, the coach said, a difficult but necessary decision had to be made in the interest of safety.
“We are in a position now where we would have to trot out a majority of our team that is 14 and 15 years old, and that is not in the best interest of our kids,” coach Petermeier explained. “To us, safety is ahead of any individual game result. Football is a physical sport and putting out a team of mostly 14-15 year olds vs. 17-18 year olds is not safe or realistic for our team, and even the opposing team playing. “
Before the decision to end their season, the Wolverines were 1-6 on the year, losing games by up to 50 points.
Coach Petermeier credited this year’s varsity squad for their preparation, training and effort, and told parents he believes the future of the Wadena-Deer Creek football program is bright with big participation numbers with players at the fifth- to ninth-grade levels.
“Football is a game that requires strength in numbers, and we will do anything we can to keep these numbers high and keep kids out for football,” he promised.
With a 17-member jury finally seated after an arduous selection process, the prosecution and defense on Thursday took the first step in building their cases.
MANKATO, Minn. — With an arduous jury selection process finally in the rearview mirror, both prosecutors and the defense began laying out their cases Thursday in the murder trial of Adam Fravel.
Fravel is charged with four felony counts – first-degree murder, first-degree premeditated murder, second-degree intentional murder, and second-degree unintentional murder while committing a felony offense – in the death of 26-year-old Maddi Kingsbury, his live-in partner and mother of Favel’s two children.
Kingsbury was last seen dropping her young son and daughter off at daycare in Winona the morning of March 31, 2023. She was reported missing by family and friends later that day. Maddi’s decomposing remains were found south of Winona 68 days later. The medical examiner eventually concluded she died of homicidal violence, likely asphyxiation.
Opening statements began shortly after 9 a.m. in Blue Earth County District Court, chosen as the venue after Judge Nancy Buytendorp ruled Fravel’s trial should be moved from Winona County due to extensive pre-trial publicity.
The state was the first to address the jury panel, with prosecutor Phil Prokopowicz immediately painting a picture of Maddi as a successful career woman and mother who had become increasingly frustrated with Fravel and his inability to contribute as their seven-year relationship crumbled.
Prokopowicz told jurors that Kingsbury had met a man, Spencer Sullivan, on a dating app and as their relationship grew Maddi decided to end her partnership with Fravel. Kingsbury contacted her landlord and said she was terminating the least, and that she had found a townhouse where she and the children would live.
The state also laid out a list of electronic and video evidence it says proves Fravel killed Maddi and engaged in an elaborate coverup, also indicating there will be testimony on alleged abuse in the relationship.
Fravel’s defense team began its opening statement with a geography lesson of sorts, with attorney Zach Bauer naming Winona and the small communities of Rushford, Choice, Mable, and the highways and county roads that run through them. Bauer asked jurors to think about the locations as they listen to testimony and absorb the evidence presented in Fravel’s trial.
The defense then began painting its own picture of the relationship between Fravel and Kingsbury, saying like many couples they had disagreements and there were times Maddi would move out the home and other times when Fravel would go home to stay with his parents.
Unlike prosecutors – who said Kingsbury’s relationship with Spencer Sullivan was getting deeper – the defense told jurors about texts from Maddi to her sister saying she was going to marry Adam Fravel. Ultimately, Bauer told the court, Kingsbury and Fravel agreed to separate but were doing so in a cooperative and planned manner.
Bauer told jurors that Fravel cooperated with police after Kingsbury disappeared, saying his defense team would show that investigators ignored evidence and facts that suggested his innocence. He indicated they will challenge the prosecution’s version of how and where the body was found, and who may have had access to the remote site not far from Mabel.
The defense also said they will call a neighbor who will testify they never heard any fighting or signs of discord in the relationship between Kingsbury and Fravel.
The 16-year-old girl was last seen in September in north Minneapolis.
MINNEAPOLIS — The Anoka County Sheriff’s Office is asking for the public’s help to find a missing teenage girl.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) shared Thursday on X that 16-year-old Tivona Cardenas was last seen in late September in north Minneapolis.
Cardenas is 5 feet 2 inches and 108 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes, according to the Minnesota BCA.
If you have any information on the teen’s whereabouts, call 911.
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