Cops out of control?

BY ED FELIEN

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.” George Orwell, “1984”

The Minneapolis City Council agreed on Friday, Dec. 9, to pay out another $1 million to victims of police brutality. On the night of Feb. 16, 2010, the MPD were executing a search warrant looking for David Conley whom they believed was selling drugs at a South Minneapolis address. The 18 officers smashed down the door with a battering ram and then threw a flash grenade into the room. It landed under the legs of Rickia Russell who was sitting on the couch. The grenade exploded and caused her permanent damage. The police could find no narcotics. They could find no David Conley. Russell was visiting her friend Mario Bogan who was playing a video game with a friend, Willy Barron.

In an attempt to cover their mistake, the MPD charged Russell with running a disorderly house. They had to drop the charge later because there was no evidence to support it.

The use of a flash grenade in 1989 caused a fire that killed Lillian Weiss and Lloyd Smalley, an elderly couple, in a North Minneapolis botched narcotics raid at the wrong address. In 2000 a flash grenade caused a fire in another raid on a North Minneapolis triplex.

Flash grenades are meant to stun, frighten and temporarily blind someone. They are, by anyone’s definition, a weapon of terror. They are clearly unsafe, and they open the City to legal liability.

This award to Russell is the third largest. The biggest was $4.5 million in 2007 to Duy Ngo, an undercover Hmong police officer, who was shot and paralyzed by a fellow officer. The family of Dominic Felder, a mentally disturbed man, received $2.19 million.

Excluding the $4.5 million to Duy Ngo, this year will set a record for the largest amount of money paid out by the City to compensate for police misconduct. The total is $4.3 million so far. For the seven years prior to 2010, the City paid out an average of $1.5 million per year for police abuse. During the same period St. Paul paid out an average of $167,000.

There are only two possibilities that explain this difference: Either the City of Minneapolis is run by incompetents who cannot discipline the police force, or, the City of Minneapolis is willing to pay more in property taxes and cut essential services in order to subsidize a reign of terror. The terrorism and brutality have almost exclusively been directed at communities of color. Must we conclude, then, that this is the official policy of the City?

It was reported in the Los Angeles Times that police in North Dakota used predator drones to spy on local citizens. Should we assume the MPD will want to adopt this new technology as well. At that point we shall finally have arrived at the final revelation of “1984”—“Big Brother is Watching You!”