Minneapolis, MN

City of Minneapolis, Jaleel Stallings reach $1.5M settlement

Published

3 years ago

May 17, 2022

City of Minneapolis, Jaleel Stallings reach .5M settlement

The Metropolis of Minneapolis has agreed to pay $1.5 million to Jaleel Stallings, a St. Paul veteran who sued the town after being acquitted of eight felony costs when he shot in self-defense at Minneapolis cops through the George Floyd protests.

The settlement covers prices and attorneys’ charges, in response to court docket paperwork, although the town won’t admit fault or take any duty for the incident as a part of the settlement with Stallings.

The town council must approve the ultimate settlement.

Stallings was acquitted by a jury final summer season for the fees after proof offered immediately contradicted accounts offered by police and laid out by prosecutors. Stallings, who was protesting the demise of George Floyd on Might 30, 2020, stated he did not know the folks firing plastic bullets at him from an unmarked cargo van have been police, so he fired again.

Hennepin County Jail

A curfew had been declared and Gov. Tim Walz and different state leaders had warned about white supremacists and others wandering round Minneapolis to instigate violence. Stallings was conscious of this, which is why he armed himself (he’s legally permitted to hold), court docket paperwork clarify.

As soon as Stalling realized it was police, he laid his weapon down and laid down on the bottom. Surveillance video and bodycam footage exhibits SWAT officers kick, punch and knee Stallings repeatedly within the face and head after he had already surrendered. Officers initially claimed that he had resisted arrest, with a information launch describing it as a “wrestle.”

Stallings suffered a fracture close to his eye, in addition to cuts and bruises.

The incident occurred simply 5 days after Floyd was killed by Officer Derek Chauvin on thirty eighth Road and Chicago Avenue in south Minneapolis. Police had been driving across the space that night time, trying to regain management of a high-tension metropolis.

The SWAT workforce concerned with Stallings have been driving in an unmarked cargo van, firing 40-mm marking rounds at civilians out after curfew. Physique digicam footage confirmed officers speaking about “searching” protesters. That is once they ultimately beat Stallings and one other particular person he was with after Stallings fired his weapon again at them. He beforehand said that he “purposely” missed them.

He instructed the Minnesota Reformer on Tuesday that even with the settlement being “nice,” he nonetheless felt unhappy.

“I didn’t go into the civil swimsuit with the intention of getting a test — I wished justice and accountability, similar to I needed to face,” Stallings stated. “I want to see all events concerned be held to some stage of accountability as nicely.”

No Minneapolis Police Division officer has been formally disciplined for his or her actions through the Might 2020 riots as of today, although one feminine officer was disciplined for talking to a reporter anonymously.

It’s nonetheless the most recent in an more and more lengthy line of settlement funds the town is paying out to civilians for actions by police through the protests, which noticed numerous peaceable protesters and journalists injured by marking rounds.

Mary Moriarty, a former Hennepin County public defender who’s now working for Hennepin County Legal professional, reminded the general public on Twitter Tuesday that there has nonetheless been no reason Stallings was charged with tried homicide.

“Do not forget that the Hennepin County Legal professional filed tried homicide costs towards Mr. Stallings, requested for top bail to maintain him in jail till his trial, and, after a jury discovered him not responsible, tried to maintain the video from turning into public,” she stated.

“We nonetheless don’t have any clarification from the Hennepin County Legal professional about his resolution to cost Mr. Stallings and never the police who assaulted him.”

A spokesperson for the Hennepin County Legal professional’s Workplace instructed Convey Me The Information final 12 months the workplace by no means objected to releasing the footage, saying the video needed to be obtained from the Minneapolis Police Division by way of the Metropolis Legal professional’s Workplace.

Final month, the Minnesota Division of Human Rights discovered after an virtually two-year investigation that there’s possible trigger that the Metropolis of Minneapolis and the police division has engaged in an unlawful “sample or apply of race discrimination” over a interval of at the very least a decade.

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Minneapolis, MN

George Foreman's daughter in Minneapolis remembers her dad

Published

10 hours ago

March 28, 2025

Press Room

George Foreman's daughter in Minneapolis remembers her dad

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) – A Minnesota woman is grieving the death of her father – legendary boxer and heavyweight champ George Foreman – after he died in Texas last week.

Daughter remembers Joe Foreman

What we know:

Most of us knew him from moments like The Rumble in the Jungle.

But Michi Foreman who knew him as simply as “dad.”

“He was a big kid, he played with us like he was one of the kids and all of a sudden try to be serious,” Michi Foreman tells FOX 9.

Final moments with her father

What they’re saying:

Now Michi is mourning the loss of her father, who she says lived an extraordinary life.

“The last time I saw my father, the life was sort of just not there,” said Foreman.

She tells FOX 9 her father was more than just someone who took on Muhammad Ali.

He was a pillar in her life, a preacher, and someone who often gave her wisdom. She believes his cause of death was from all those years in the ring.
“I told my brothers and sister, I said he’s tired. And they were like, yeah, but he’s still fighting. I said, sit back and let God do his work. And two hours later, he was gone,” said Foreman.

Foreman fighting as dad

A daddy’s girl:

Michi says she has known her father to be a fighter since she was little. She went to see her father fight during his comeback, but it wasn’t easy.

“You can’t see someone you love like that get hit,” said Foreman.

She remembers when he became the champ once again.

“Everybody was cheering for him, and he won the second time the championship of the world. Went straight down to his knees after the fight, and prayed and thanked God,” said Foreman.

Michi also talked about how her father was sensitive and cared about people.

Whenever a celebrity was going through adversity, he’d give them a call to check on them.

Naming of the sons

Dig deeper:

Foreman has seven daughters and five sons. All of the sons are named after him.

“He was like, well, I don’t want any of my sons to feel like they’re less than the other one,” said Foreman.

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Minneapolis, MN

Did Twin Cities residents really once burn their own trash in the driveway?

Published

22 hours ago

March 28, 2025

Press Room

Did Twin Cities residents really once burn their own trash in the driveway?

In 1971, both Minneapolis and St. Paul began enforcing the rule in earnest.

A cruise along 36 miles of alleys in St. Paul in 1971 turned up only one smoking trash burner on the first day of enforcement of the burning ban. (Powell Krueger)

The practice faded away in city and suburban neighborhoods. In the 1980s, state lawmakers passed a statute that gave some farmers an exemption to burn or bury their trash as long as their county didn’t have an ordinance banning it.

A later statute, however, banned the burning of “plastics, chemically treated materials, or other materials which produce excessive or noxious smoke.”

Since that definition applies to most household garbage today, burning it is “illegal in nearly all cases, even if a county has not passed a resolution to ban it,” according to MPCA spokesperson Michael Rafferty. People can get permits to burn plant material or untreated wood, though.

Waste is trucked in before being going into a boiler and being converted into energy at the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center, or HERC, in 2023. (David Joles/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

According to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency research, burn barrels are the nation’s top source of a carcinogen called dioxin, and can also produce carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides and a host of poisonous chemicals.

In Hennepin County today, a sizable percentage of residents’ trash is still being burned. Not in driveway barrels, but in a municipal trash incinerator called the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC) on the edge of downtown Minneapolis. For years, environmental activists have been pushing for the center to be closed.

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Minneapolis, MN

MPD: Surge in hiring experienced officers, slowly rebuilding force to fulfill city charter

Published

1 day ago

March 28, 2025

Press Room

MPD: Surge in hiring experienced officers, slowly rebuilding force to fulfill city charter

The Minneapolis Police Department is seeing a surge in the number of experienced officers joining the force.

The need for more officers in Minneapolis is drastic, losing hundreds following the murder of George Floyd — the fewer officers has led to longer 911 response times, officer burnout, to less focus on investigations with investigators needing to be on patrol.

But progress to rebuild is being made — the department reports gaining 38 officers last year, including 22 “lateral hires,” which are officers that join from a different agency. That nearly two dozen is more than four times the number the year before.

MPD lateral hires, according to MPD.

2016-2020: 0
2021: 3
2022: 8
2023: 5
2024: 22
2025: 3 (as of March 27)

“I was looking for some different leadership,” Heather Starry, who joined MPD as a lateral hire from a metro police department in 2024, said. “It’s been nothing but positive here, and I think that really builds morale.”

For patrol officer Liban Ibrahim, who also joined in 2024 from the Metro Transit Police Department, it was the police chief that drew him to Minneapolis.

“I saw the changes that [were] happening here after Chief O’Hara got here,” Ibrahim said.

And William Nkata, joining from another metro department, also wanted to be part of the change.

“Even after everything that the city went through, I felt like was still a good city. There still is good in the city,” Nkata added.

The frequency in lateral hires happening around the state is somewhat new for the industry, according to Jim Mortenson, who is with one of the state’s largest unions — the Law Enforcement Labor Services, which doesn’t represent MPD officers.

“Sometimes chasing it because it’s leadership issues, sometimes chasing it for geography issues, sometimes chasing it for financial issues,” Mortenson said of lateral hires.

He adds, though, that it’s not a long-term solution for a statewide issue.

“We’re currently a little over 1,000 officers down in the state,” Mortenson said. “We’ve got too many people that are no longer in this profession, and we don’t have enough people coming into the profession.”

Minneapolis needs to build their force back up for many reasons, including to fulfill the city charter, which requires 731 officers — the department says they’re 148 short, as of this March.

MPD also says there are nearly 60 Community Service Officers and Cadets working to become officers — those two avenues take longer to hit the streets compared to lateral hires.

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