News — police brutality

A former St. Paul police officer who assaulted a Black grandfather and allowed a service dog to also maul him during a 2016 arrest was on Friday sentenced to six years in prison after he was found guilty of using excessive force. Colleagues of former officer Brett Palkowitsch took the stand to testify against him during his 2019 trial.

According to MPR News, the brutal incident Palkowitsch has been convicted for, left the victim, Frank Baker, with several broken ribs as well as collapsed lungs. During the arrest, Palkowitsch, who had responded to a 911 report of a fight and robbery, allegedly kicked Baker and set the police dog on him. Baker was perceived to be a suspect but it later turned out to be a case of mistaken identity.

During the sentencing hearing, a reportedly tearful Palkowitsch rendered an apology to Baker and his former colleagues. “I hope that today gives you a little bit of closure, but I know for the rest of your life it’s something you’re going to have to deal with. For the rest of my life, it’s something that I’m going to have to live with as well. But from the bottom of my heart, I’m sorry,” he told the victim.

But though Baker said he has forgiven him, he cast doubts over Palkowitsch’s apology, saying it wasn’t genuine. “His family and friends, his mother, his wife, his kids, got to see that he has a dark side to him. He made my life a living hell,” Baker said.

The 2016 incident occurred when Baker had arrived home and was making a phone call in his car. While in his vehicle, he was confronted by officers who established he fit the description of a Black suspect a dispatcher had told them was allegedly involved in a fight. During his arrest, Baker said he obeyed orders from the officers but that did not help his case, MPR News reported.

“When the officer said ‘get out of the car and put your hands up,’ I put my hands up,” Baker  recollected. “I didn’t even have time to take two steps. He let the dog out. I’m looking like it’s in slow motion. No you didn’t!”

In the aftermath of the incident, Palkowitsch was terminated from the force and the city reached a $2 million settlement with Baker. Palkowitsch was later reinstated after the St. Paul Police Federation appealed his dismissal. He was, however, fired once again after he was found guilty in 2019. Though his prison sentence was expected to be between four and five years after striking an agreement with prosecutors, U.S. District Judge Wilhelmina Wright dismissed it. Per the agreement, Palkowitsch wouldn’t have been able to appeal his conviction. But the judge handing him a longer sentence means he can now appeal. And his lawyer told the news outlet they’ll pursue that.

“You get more good policemen than bad policemen”

Though Baker is still reeling from the effects of the attack, he said he harbors no ill will towards law enforcement officers and he even wanted to become a detective during his teenage years. “One thing I want people to know is that I love the law. I really do. You get more good policemen than bad policemen,” he said.

Clive Mensah died at the hands of police in his own back yard in Mississauga, Ontario, a city west of Toronto, on Nov. 20, 2019. In March 2021, the Ontario police watchdog unit ruled there would be no criminal charges against the officers involved in his death. The unit’s report concluded that, while the officers applied “significant force” against the unarmed, mentally ill Black man, it was “not unlawful.” That force included hitting him with six electric shocks from Tasers and spraying him with pepper spray, after he had obeyed their orders to lie face down.

Mensah was born in Scarborough, Ontario, in 1989, but spent much of his childhood in his parents’ home country of Ghana, where he pursued interests in music and basketball. Returning to Canada at age 18, he worked at grocery stores and as a warehouse forklift driver. In 2014 Mensah experienced several psychotic episodes and a psychiatrist diagnosed him with possible schizophrenia.

Drawing on an interview with the Peel Regional Police officer who arrived first the night Mensah died, the postmortem report indicates Mensah was walking on a sidewalk by his home in the early hours of Nov. 20, 2019. The officer, responding to calls by neighbors about a man causing a disturbance, found Mensah “flailing his arms and making unintelligible noises.” The officer had thought it was clear from Mensah’s behavior that he needed help but did not summon a 24-hour crisis response team; such teams pair a plainclothes officer with a mental health official. Two other police officers arrived, and the three followed Mensah into his backyard.

Mensah complied with their orders to lie down but after his arms flailed when told to put them behind his back, one officer fired a Taser at him. The report said Mensah got up and advanced toward them. Again an officer fired a Taser at him, after which Mensah fell face down to the ground and went rigid but was still “aggressive and combative.” The officers moved to restrain him, again fired a Taser at him, sprayed pepper spray toward the back of his head, and handcuffed him. He became unresponsive. By the time another officer arrived, he found Mensah face down with foam coming from his mouth and no pulse, and the officer began life-saving measures until paramedics arrived, at which point a fifth officer arrived and removed his handcuffs. During this time, Mensah never spoke. A hospital report noted that paramedics were delayed in reaching the stricken man because police cruisers blocked the roadway. Less than an hour passed from the time police were first called at 3:15 a.m. and when Mensah was pronounced dead at the hospital shortly after 4 a.m.

Two of the three officers involved in Mensah’s death refused to speak with investigators from the Ontario Special Investigations Unit (SIU), whose role is to determine whether there has been police wrongdoing. SIU cannot legally compel officers to speak to investigators or turn over their notes.

Mensah’s only family in Canada, his uncles William Owusu and Stephen Boakye, said they’ve never heard from Peel police about Mensah’s death and never received an apology. They waited nearly 18 months for the SIU’s report and “now, we see no one will be held accountable.”

The U.S. Justice Department is exploring the possibility of bringing charges against former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin after videos from a 2017 incident showed him brutally hitting a Black teenager in the head and kneeling on him for almost 17 minutes during a violent arrest, ABC News reported.

Just like Floyd, the teenager allegedly told Chauvin he could not breathe while the former cop had him pinned to the ground with his knee. But Chauvin did not budge. The incident also reportedly left the teenager with a head injury and in need of stitches as the impact with which Chauvin struck him was severe.

The videos in question were reportedly shown to Minnesota state prosecutors last year while they were getting ready for Chauvin’s trial over the May 25 death of Floyd. The former disgraced cop was found guilty of murder and manslaughter in the death of the African-American father on April 20.

“Those videos show a far more violent and forceful treatment of this child than Chauvin describes in his report [of the incident],” Matthew Frank, a state prosecutor who looked into the incident involving the teen, wrote in a court filing. And though state prosecutors did not bring charges against Chauvin at the time, the DOJ could reopen the case.

Witnesses who saw the September 2017 incident testified before a federal grand jury two months ago, ABC News reported. A source also told the news outlet authorities are still investigating the incident and the Justice Department is looking at filing federal charges against Chauvin over the death of Floyd as well as the incident involving the teen.

Prior to the commencement of Chauvin’s trial for Floyd’s death, state prosecutors had reportedly wanted to cite the 2017 incident to the jury to make a case for their argument about the former cop’s attitude while on the job. The judge turned the request down.

Before the judge’s ruling, however, Frank, in court documents, said body-cam footage of the incident “show Chauvin’s use of unreasonable force towards this child and complete disdain for his well-being.”

What happened?

The September 2017 incident occurred when Chauvin and other colleague officers responded to a 911 call about a woman who alleged her 14-year-old son and daughter had attacked her at her home, Frank said, according to ABC News. Following a conversation with the woman after the officers got to the scene of the incident, the teenage boy was instructed to get on the ground but he declined those orders.

Things quickly escalated from there and Chauvin allegedly struck the teenager’s head with his flashlight, grabbed his throat and struck him with the flashlight again. Frank said Chauvin subsequently “applied a neck restraint, causing the child to lose consciousness and go to the ground.”

“Chauvin and [the other officer] placed [the teenager] in the prone position and handcuffed him behind his back while the teenager’s mother pleaded with them not to kill her son and told her son to stop resisting,” Frank wrote, adding that the teenager started bleeding from the ear. “About a minute after going to the ground, the child began repeatedly telling the officers that he could not breathe, and his mother told Chauvin to take his knee off her son.”

Chauvin allegedly knelt on the teenager for almost 17 minutes. The injured boy was arrested and charged with domestic assault and obstruction with force. Paramedics who attended to the boy had to transport him to a hospital for his head to be stitched.

Frank likened Chauvin’s use of force on the teen to that of Floyd’s. The 46-year-old African-American passed away after Chauvin knelt on his neck for over nine minutes despite repeatedly telling him he couldn’t breathe.

“As was true with the conduct with George Floyd, Chauvin rapidly escalated his use of force for a relatively minor offense,” Frank added. “Just like with Floyd, Chauvin used an unreasonable amount of force without regard for the need for that level of force or the victim’s well-being. Just like with Floyd, when the child was slow to comply with Chauvin and [the other officer’s] instructions, Chauvin grabbed the child by the throat, forced him to the ground in the prone position, and placed his knee on the child’s neck with so much force that the child began to cry out in pain and tell Chauvin he could not breathe.”

Chauvin’s attorney, Eric Nelson, however, dismissed the alleged similarities, arguing that “his client’s action that day was “was reasonable and authorized under the law as well as MPD policy,” ABC News reported. Nelson also argued the teen was “actively resisting” arrest and cited the circumstances surrounding the incident.

A jury in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has found the 45-year-old guilty on all three counts of murder and manslaughter charges. The counts were second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter of African-American man Geoge Floyd.

Chauvin now faces up to 75 years in prison but will await his sentencing per the adjournment of the court.

Earlier in the day, President Joe Biden revealed that he had called Floyd’s family to express his support and wish for “the right verdict”.

“I have come to know George’s family not just in passing. I have spent time with them, I have spent time with his little daughter, Gianna…So I can only imagine the pressure and anxiety they are feeling…I called them.”

Meanwhile, Minnesota declared a state of emergency in anticipation of the verdict.

Earlier civil suit victory

In another conclusion in another lawsuit related to Floyd’s killing, his family will now be paid $27 million in compensation by the city as was settled on Friday, March 12.

The settlement is different from the criminal proceedings that are ongoing against former officer Derek Chauvin and others charged with the eventual demise of the man they accosted for allegedly trying to use counterfeit money. For eight minutes and forty-six seconds that have since been immortalized by the Black Lives Matter movement, Chauvin pinned a knee to the back of Floyd’s head while Floyd pleaded for his life.

Announcing the settlement in March between Floyd’s family and the city of Minneapolis, family attorney Ben Crump said the settlement “sends a powerful message that Black lives do matter and police brutality against people of color must end.” The lawyer who also represents the families of Jacob Blake and Breonna Taylor, victims of police brutality, said the payment to Floyd’s family is the biggest pre-trial settlement ever in a case of wrongful death.

Brighter days

Floyd’s death, which was mourned across the world and sparked a global campaign against anti-Black racism, has also yielded a few positive outcomes for those involved with the man.

For instance, actress and singer, Barbara Streisand revealed at the end of last year that she had gifted some of her shares in the multibillion entertainment conglomerate Disney to Floyd’s 6-year-old daughter, Gianna. The Grammy award-winning singer was quoted as saying: “I sent Gianna videos where I played a little girl in my first television special singing kid songs and my second special a sequence with lots of baby animals”.

Brooklyn Nets star guard Kyrie Irving also bought a house for Floyd’s family in January of this year.

Irving, 28, reportedly gave the Floyd family the funds to purchase the home around five or six months before the new year, sources told Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated, according to ESPN. This gesture added to a string of other philanthropic efforts the NBA champion has earmarked.

Last December too, the global literary and human rights organization PEN gave its Beneson Courage Award to then 17-year-old Darnella Frazier, the young woman who filmed the harrowing last few seconds of the life of Floyd.

PEN America said that Frazier received the award for her “sheer guts” that “changed the course of history in this country”.

The deaf community in the United States is condemning the actions of North Las Vegas police officers who allegedly handcuffed a deaf motorist in the presence of her 11-year-old twins and then made the minors interpret for them, FOX5 reports.

The incident reportedly occurred when the woman, identified as Andrea “Dre” Hollingsworth, went to her former landlord to collect a rent refund after moving out early. The landlord, however, called the police on her and when they arrived, a confrontation ensued.

In an interview with the news outlet, Hollingsworth said she was unable to effectively communicate with the officers due to her condition, adding that she also did not know why she was pulled over.

“I don’t know, I’m being pulled over and he is interrogating me … I am black, I am deaf, George Floyd just happened,” Hollingsworth, who streamed the encounter on Facebook Live, said. “The police officer pulled my arm … and I was like, ‘whoa, why?’ I have never experienced anything like that in my life.”

Hollingsworth’s twin daughters were in the car during the stop and the officer also ordered them to exit the vehicle. Meanwhile, Hollingsworth said she told the officer the only way they could communicate was through texting and writing but “he just kept on talking.”

In the video, the officer is heard telling the twins their mother is being investigated. One of the girls also tries to explain what their mother is doing in the area. “She is just here because she needs her money back from her friend,” she tells the officer.

The confrontation, however, escalated and Hollingsworth said the officer forcefully made her sit on the curb of the road after she came out of her car. She was later handcuffed while her children watched screaming. From that point, Hollingsworth said she was unable to sign.

“Tell her to put her hands behind her back,” an officer is heard saying in the video. “One of you guys need to talk some sense into her.”

Responding to the incident, the North Las Vegas Police Department said Hollingsworth “initially refused to comply with requests and was briefly detained until police completed their investigation.”

Speaking to FOX5, deaf rights lawyer Andrew Rozynski said the officers making Hollingsworth’s twins interpret for them was illegal. “Requiring an 11-year-old to interpret in a police situation is against the Americans with Disabilities Act. There are regulations in there that expressly prohibit children from being used as interpreters,” he said.

Quite a handful of police departments reportedly have round-the-clock interpreter services to facilitate effective communication in these kinds of scenarios. “There are services out there such as video relay, in which someone can bring up an interpreter on an iPhone or iPad,” Rozynski revealed.

Hollingsworth said the incident likely left her twin daughters scared and devastated. “I never thought this would happen to me because I am not a criminal,” she said. “My kids are afraid because of all the incidents that have been happening recently. They are raised Black in this community, so when they see a police officer, they are also on high alert.”

To prevent future occurrences of such nature, the Black mother said she wants to see reform in the city’s policing. “I really want all of Las Vegas police to change, because it is really scary how deaf people are treated. If my kids weren’t with me, then I would have died that day. My kids saved my life,” she said.

Anthony Thompson, a 17-year-old student at Austin-East Magnet High School in Tennessee was shot and killed by a police officer in a bathroom at the school on Monday, April 12. But the story which followed immediately that Thompson had fired at and hurt an officer may not be true.

Only two days after saying the bullet which wounded the officer was from Thompson’s handgun, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) released another statement on Wednesday, April 14 saying: “Preliminary examinations indicate the bullet that struck the KPD officer was not fired from the student’s handgun”.

Thompson appeared to have hidden in the restroom as police officers came to his school. The TBI said the officers were responding to a report that there was a gunman on the school’s premises. The statement two days earlier had claimed that “[a]s officers entered the restroom, the subject reportedly fired shots, striking an officer”.

Now, the TBI says shots fired from Thompson’s gun were as a result of a struggle between the officer and the teenager. The wounded officer was shot by another officer.

But even with this development and in spite of the calls from Thompson’s family and other residents, the TBI, the Knoxville Police Department and the Knox County District Attorney General’s Office have reportedly refused to release bodycam footage from the altercation. According to Tennessee state laws, authorities can choose to do this while investigations are ongoing.

Calls to have the bodycam footage publicized are also coming from three of the four police officers who had answered the call to Austin-East Magnet High School. The three officers are currently under investigation.

The mayor of Knoxville, Indya Kincannon, treated the calls by the officers as “an effort to accurately inform the public”. The mayor’s office has also backed these calls because “the public interest is best served by the immediate release of these videos”.

Police brutality against minorities, particularly African Americans, often dominates media discussions. Multiple advocacies to end police killings of unarmed Black men have yielded little results. 

The killing of George Floyd by the police is still fresh in the minds of the Black community. His killing led to massive protests across communities in the U.S. calling for an end to police profiling and killing of minorities.

Several tactics have been devised to capture incidents of police confrontations with Blacks but this has done little to change police attitudes towards Black men and women they arrest or engage.

In search of a comprehensive solution to make Black people feel safe when they get pulled over, arrested, or confronted by the police, a Black-owned firm, WestMason, has come up with an app for minorities to protect themselves.

WestMason has launched a mobile app called MyOneOne to provide a personal security network made up of the friends and families of its users. The app is currently available on Android and iOS, according to Black Business.

Eric Mills, CTO of WestMason, in a Youtube video, explained how the app works. “Myonone is an app to allow minorities in the underserve the ability to create lifelines where groups of individuals or a group of loved ones that you would like to contact in an emergence,” he said.

“Say, you are driving down the street and you get pulled over by the police, you feel unconformable, you feel unsafe, you are in the middle of nowhere and you do not know why you got pulled over in the first place, you can simply tap the alarm button and it will bring up a list of options for you in an emergence. One of those is, ‘I was pulled over by the police,’” he said.

He further explained that “if you feel uncomfortable in that situation, you hit the button, then your live stream is started from your phone where your love ones or your lifeline is alerted, they know you’ve been pulled over and a video automatically starts and they can view it.”

According to him, the significance of the app is that “you know you are not alone.”  The app allows users to:

• Create and maintain a lifeline consisting of friends and family.
• Alert your lifeline when in dangerous situations.
• Livestream from your device to your lifeline. Video is stored in a secure location for future review.
• Send location information to your lifeline.
• Contact emergency services with the same information as your lifeline. Coupled with health information and profile picture.

Rapper and actor Romeo Miller recently opened up about a tense encounter with a Black police officer after he allegedly pulled him over at gunpoint while he was driving around the University of California, Los Angeles campus.

Speaking on FOX Soul’s The Mix, the 31-year-old said the officer moved to him with his gun drawn and went ahead to ask if the car he was driving was stolen. “UCLA, you better have that camera recording, because they don’t play no games. But the guy pulled me over at gunpoint, a Black cop, and was like, ‘Is this a stolen vehicle?’” he recollected. “I’m like, bro, relax. Just come check my registration and get my driving license.”

“Is this a stolen vehicle?” Miller repeated, playing the role of the officer. The Jumping the Broom actor, however, said the hostility ceased once the officer recognized him. “And then he saw it was me and was like, ‘Oh, Romeo Miller? Oh, you’re good. I thought you were just some random Black dude,’” he recalled.

Though Miller, who is the son of veteran rapper and business mogul Master P, fortunately walked away unharmed, he lamented on how things could have gone south had it been just another regular Black person. Miller used his younger brothers as an example, saying the police could be hostile to them because they’re less famous and their towering physiques could pass them off as intimidating and mature – though they aren’t.

“I don’t care, you don’t have to be ‘some random Black dude.’ My brothers ain’t famous. They’re bigger than me –– these guys are 6’4, 6’5. These guys are ‘intimidating Black men.’ I have little brothers that literally look like grown men,” he said. “What are they going to go through when they don’t realize ‘Oh I know you from TV? You’re not a threat, or this or that.’ It’s sad that we’re seen as threatening. I been through that situation too many times.”

Miller’s encounter with the armed officer comes on the back of a recent and similar incident involving Power star Michael Rainey Jr. In an Instagram post, the Black actor claimed he would have been shot by a police officer after he was pulled over during a routine traffic stop had he not instinctively started recording their encounter.

In the video, Rainey, who is popularly known for his role as Tariq in the popular television series, Power, is seen trying to produce his license after the officer makes a demand for it. The officer, who is leaning over from the driver’s window of Rainey’s vehicle, appears to have his right hand on his gun at a certain point. He, however, appears to cover it after he realizes he is being recorded. Rainey claimed the decision to film the incident may have saved him from being shot by the officer.

A Black man has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Chicago Police Department alleging he was violently arrested for no reason whatsoever during an incident that left him with facial injuries last year.

In an interview with KABC-TV, the plaintiff – Leroy Kennedy IV – reiterated his innocence, saying the incident has left him traumatized. Kennedy said he ended up spending four days in jail and an aggravated battery of a police officer charge against him was later dropped.

“It left me feeling traumatized. Man, I ain’t gonna lie. You get nervous. You get even more nervous once you see the police,” he said.

Kennedy said the incident occurred when he was on his way to a store in Humboldt Park. He alleged he was confronted by two Chicago Police officers who roughed him up and slammed him to a brick wall, adding that his head was also hit against a sidewalk more than once. The incident was reportedly witnessed by angry bystanders who called the officers out for their actions. Kennedy told the news outlet he suffered a concussion and injuries to his wrist and hand. The arrest also left him with visible grazes on his face.

“I told him like ‘Sir, I’m not resisting. I just want to get my glasses,” he told the news outlet. “He slammed me again thinking I’m resisting.” The video camera footage of the incident also shows Kennedy walking unsteadily as the officers escort him into a patrol car in handcuffs.

Per the police report, the officers wrote they confronted Kennedy as he had “a shocked look on his face” when he saw them, adding that they suspected he was “attempting to conceal a firearm,” KABC-TV reported. Kennedy was, however, not armed and he did not also have any drugs on him. The officers could not also fully explain the motive behind the arrest to supervisors when they arrived.

“The police couldn’t even pretend he did anything,” Kennedy’s attorney said. “So you have a police report which gives no description of a crime and no reason for approaching him, other than his bulging eyes.”

The lawsuit states Kennedy is seeking “compensatory damages and because defendants acted maliciously, wantonly, or oppressively, punitive damages against the individual (officers) in their individual capacities,” CNN reported. Additionally, the plaintiff also seeks court as well as attorney fees.

A Black New Jersey man who reportedly spent 10 days in jail after he was misidentified by facial recognition technology is suing the police and prosecutors.

According to NBC News, Nijeer Parks was misidentified by the software as a suspect who was wanted for shoplifting at a hotel in a 2019 incident. The 33-year-old, in the civil lawsuit filed in Passaic County, stated that his grandmother – on January 30, 2019 – informed him of an arrest warrant for him for allegedly shoplifting at a gift store at Hampton Inn in Woodbridge, and then hitting a police vehicle as he escaped. However, Parks said he neither owned a car nor even had a driver’s license in early 2019.

When he went to the Woodbridge police headquarters on February 5 to try and clear his name, he was rather taken into custody. “As he had previously told the clerk, plaintiff told the interrogators that [he] had never had a driver’s license, that he had never owned a car, and that he had never even been in Woodbridge,” Parks’ attorney, Daniel Sexton, stated in the lawsuit. “Plaintiff also gave … a solid alibi that proved he could not have done what he was suspected of doing.”

Despite that, Parks said he spent 10 days in jail, and the police as well as prosecutors failed to check DNA and fingerprints from the crime scene to corroborate his claim. “Defendant police department was relying solely on the faulty and illegal [facial recognition software] or some analogous program while all evidence and forensics confirmed plaintiff had no relationship to the suspect for the crimes,” Sexton wrote, NBC News reported.

Charges against him were, however, later dropped.

Critics have long argued facial recognition technology is skewed. Over the years, various studies have provided proof that facial recognition tools are often biased against minorities. A 2019 study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology found that though the technology works relatively well on White men, it provides less accurate results for other demographics, and experts have blamed this on a lack of diversity in the images used to develop the databases.

A staff lawyer for the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, Nathan Freed Wessler, told NBC News Parks’ detention was due to “flawed and privacy-invading surveillance technology.”

“There are likely many more wrongful interrogations, arrests, and possibly even convictions because of this technology that we still do not know about,” Wessler said. “This technology disproportionately harms the Black community.”

As there are no federal laws on the use of facial recognition technology in the US, states and cities have been stepping in to regulate it. In September, the city of Portland passed what is regarded as the strictest facial recognition ban in the United States. Last year, San Francisco also became the first major city in the country to ban its police department and agencies from using it.

Almost two years ago, the Chicago police raided the home of Anjanette Young with their guns drawn and a warrant in search of a suspect. Young, who had just returned from her shift at the hospital as a social worker, was naked at the time the police broke down her door.

Startled and demanding to know what was going on, she was handcuffed – while still naked – and ignored while her home was searched. It later turned out to be a botched raid. They got the wrong house. Following the incident, Young filed a lawsuit against the police.

Young, through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) she filed last year, also requested the bodycam footage of the incident be turned over so the public could also see what actually happened that night, CBS 2 reported, adding that they also filed the same request. The Chicago Police Department, however, refused to release the footage.

A court recently ordered the police department to turn the videos over to Young as part of her lawsuit. “I feel like they didn’t want us to have this video because they knew how bad it was,” she told the news outlet. “They knew they had done something wrong. They knew that the way they treated me was not right.”

Per the footage of nine body cameras, a group of male officers reportedly barged into Young’s home after breaking her door with a battering ram on the night of February 21, 2019. The social worker, who had just arrived from work, was naked in her bedroom when she initially heard the noise from beyond her door.

“It was so traumatic to hear the thing that was hitting the door,” she told CBS 2. “And it happened so fast, I didn’t have time to put on clothes.”

The officers, who entered her home with their weapons drawn, made it known they had a search warrant and shouted: “Hands up, hands up, hands up.” Naked, Young complied with their orders despite being startled and terrified. She was then handcuffed while still naked.

In the footage, Young asked the officers: “What is going on? There’s nobody else here, I live alone. I mean, what is going on here? You’ve got the wrong house. I live alone.”

“It’s one of those moments where I felt I could have died that night,” she told CBS 2. “Like if I would have made one wrong move, it felt like they would have shot me. I truly believe they would have shot me.”

Young was later covered with a short coat but it did not completely hide her nakedness. An officer later covered her with a blanket. Crying, Young continued to ask the officers what was going on.

“They just threw something over me, and my hands are behind me and I’m handcuffed,” she said. “So there’s no way for me to secure the blanket around me.”

Elsewhere in the video, Young was heard telling the officers they were in the wrong house. “Tell me what’s going on,” she asked. “You’ve got the wrong house, you’ve got the wrong house, you’ve got the wrong house.”

A sergeant then asked her: “There’s no one else who lives in this apartment?”, to which she replied: “No, no one else lives here.” CBS 2 reported Young told the officers they were in the wrong home at least 43 times. She said the officers also ignored her when she demanded answers.

“When I asked them to show me, when I asked them to tell me what they are doing in my house, and their response to me was just, shut up and calm down, that’s so disrespectful,” she said. Young was allowed to dress after a female officer arrived 13 minutes later, but she was handcuffed again afterward.

Per investigations from the news outlet, the police could have avoided wrongly breaking into Young’s home had they cross-checked to confirm if that was the address of the suspect they were after. They obtained the search warrant and conducted the raid following a tip from a confidential informant.

The informant in question told the lead officer of the raid – known as affiant –  that he had recently seen the suspect with a gun and ammunition a day before the raid. After the informant confirmed the identity of the suspect after the officer ran his image through the database, the informant took the officer to the suspect’s alleged location – which was a wrong address. Without running any further background checks, a search warrant was obtained.

CBS 2, however, reported the officers could have accurately located the suspect, who was a known felon, because he was wearing an electronic monitoring device. The suspect also lived in the residential complex next to Young’s. “That piece of paper [search warrant] gives them the right to, you know, that says you can do X, Y, Z based on what’s on that paper,” Young told the news outlet. “So if you get it wrong, you are taking 100 percent control of someone else’s life and treating them in a bad way.”

After the police realized they were in the wrong home getting to the end of the raid, they freed Young. “I do apologize for bothering you tonight,” the sergeant said. “I assure you that the city will be in contact with you tomorrow.” The sergeant also asked: “Is there anything I can do right now?”, to which Young replied: “Just leave and let me move on, this is so crazy.”

Young was only contacted by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) nine months after the February 2019 incident, and that was only after CBS 2 first reported the story. COPA said they’re still looking into the incident.

“If this had been a young woman in Lincoln Park by herself in her home naked, a young white woman — let’s just be frank – if the reaction would have been the same? I don’t think it would have been,” Keenan Saulter, Young’s attorney, said. “I think [officers] would have saw that woman, rightfully so, as someone who was vulnerable, someone who deserved protection, someone who deserved to have their dignity maintained. They viewed Ms. Young as less than human.”

Prior to the footage being aired by CBS 2, the law department of the office of Mayor Lori Lightfoot filed a federal motion seeking to block the station from showing it. Their request was, however, denied by a judge.

The Minneapolis City Council, which tried and failed to dismantle the police department in the wake of George Floyd's death, voted early Thursday to shift nearly $8 million from next year's police budget to other city services as part of an effort to "transform" public safety in the city.

The controversial plan was approved unanimously as part of the city's 2021 budget.

Mayor Jacob Frey had earlier threatened a veto to the budget, calling the police cuts "irresponsible" as the city confronts an unprecedented wave of violence and scores of police officer departures since Floyd's death that have left the department struggling to respond to emergencies.

But in a statement early Thursday, Frey praised the council for removing language that would have permanently shrunk the size of the force by about 130 officers in what he described as a "defining moment for our city."

Council members who supported the "Safety for All" plan argued the city could no longer tolerate what they described as a broken system of policing and a department that has been resistant to reform.

“Believe me, this is not an easy vote to take, but I believe it is right,” said Andrea Jenkins, a council member who represents an area of South Minneapolis adjacent to the street corner where Floyd was killed.

The vote came after days of contentious public hearings and deeply emotional debate among council members, who have openly struggled to balance concern about historically high crime across Minneapolis against public calls to reform a police department that has long been accused of racism and excessive force, especially against residents of color.

The budget fight unfolded six months after Floyd’s death, which sparked worldwide protests and a national reckoning on issues of race, social justice and policing.

The 46-year-old Black man died after being handcuffed and restrained face down on a South Minneapolis street by police responding to a 911 call about a counterfeit $20 bill that had been passed at a local convenience store. Following a struggle, then-Officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes as the man repeatedly complained of struggling to breathe.

Chauvin, who was with the department for 19 years, has been charged with murder, and three other officers at the scene — J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas K. Lane and Tou Thao — have been charged with aiding and abetting. All four were fired from the police department and are scheduled to go on trial in March.

In June, days after Floyd’s killing, a majority of the city council promised to defund and dismantle the department and replace it with a new agency focused on a mix of public safety and violence prevention. But some elected leaders have backed off those promises in recent months.

“If we’re considering taking everything out of MPD that’s not an officer with a gun, I don’t believe in that,” Alondra Cano, a council member whose district includes the South Minneapolis intersection where Floyd was killed, said during a hearing Monday.

Frey had proposed a $179 million police budget for 2021, a cut of approximately $14 million from the approved 2020 budget because of declining city revenue related to the coronavirus pandemic. But under the budget approved Thursday, the council would divert $7.7 million from law enforcement to fund alternatives to policing, including mental health crisis teams and additional staffers in the city’s office of violence prevention.

About $5 million of that money came from cuts to a budget for police overtime — a move that Police Chief Medaria Arradondo had strongly discouraged, calling overtime a “necessity” for the department as it copes with staffing shortages and prepares for the trial of the four former police officers charged in Floyd’s death.

The department had been funded for about 880 officers in 2020. But Arradondo told council members Monday that, as of Dec. 1, the agency was down 166 officers — some of whom have permanently left the force and others who have been out on long-term medical leave, many citing post-traumatic stress disorder from the civil unrest that erupted after Floyd’s death.

In a last-minute debate, council members rejected a motion that would have reduced the number of full-time officers to 750 — essentially not replacing the officers who have left. Supporters argued that the amendment would simply take the open positions off the books, as the staffing shortage is unlikely to be solved in the coming year.

“It’s not possible to magically recruit more officers,” said Steve Fletcher, a council member who represents part of downtown Minneapolis. “Open positions do not solve crimes. Open positions do not write tickets. Open positions do not prevent anything. They do not deter anything. They do not create a sense of safety.”

Under the budget plan approved early Thursday, the council set up an $11.4 million reserve fund that would include about $6 million Frey had budgeted for two future recruiting classes, as well as an additional $5 million for police overtime. The police department would have to get city council approval to access the funds — an effort to increase accountability for the department, council members said.

Ahead of Thursday’s vote, council members, meeting in a virtual hearing because of the pandemic, heard hours of testimony from hundreds of Minneapolis residents who phoned in their comments about the proposed cuts.

Many invoked Floyd’s police custody death to argue for reduced funding for an agency they said cannot be reformed. Many callers who identified themselves as residents of the South Minneapolis neighborhoods that were burned and destroyed during the civil unrest that erupted after Floyd’s killing blamed police for inflaming the protests and doing little to stop the looting and burning of businesses.

“The actions of the MPD after George Floyd just showed to me how the MPD is irredeemable,” a South Minneapolis resident named Paul, who gave no last name, told the council. “They don’t care about us. They all live in the suburbs, and they don’t prevent any crime. All they do is escalate the situation.”

Others accused the council of acting rashly by reducing funding for the department at a crucial moment in the city and without proof that the alternative policing methods it is embracing will work quickly enough to contain the surging crime and violence.

Doug Tanner, a resident of South Minneapolis, told council members his wife had been carjacked, robbed and assaulted.

“The fact that this council does not even acknowledge there is a problem is irresponsible,” he said. “The crime rate is at an all-time high, and you want less cops on the street. Where does common sense come into the equation?”

Homicides in Minneapolis are up more than 50 percent, with nearly 80 people killed across the city so far this year. Nearly 530 people have been shot, the highest number in more than a decade and twice as many as in 2019. And there have been more than 4,600 violent crimes — including hundreds of carjackings and robberies — a five-year high.