Despite High Settlements, Minneapolis Doesn't Discipline Cops

It's only taxpayer money

Despite nearly $14 million in payouts for alleged police misconduct over the past seven years, the Minneapolis Police Department rarely concluded that the officers involved did anything wrong, according to a Star Tribune analysis.

Of 95 payouts from 2006 to 2012 to people who said they were victims of misconduct, eight resulted in officers being disciplined, according to records from the police and the city attorney's office.

The 12 costliest settlements were for cases that did not result in any officer discipline, the Star Tribune found. They included the $2.19 million paid in the case of Dominic Felder, a mentally ill man shot dead in 2006 by police, and the $1 million paid in the case of Rickia Russell, a woman severely burned by a police flash grenade in 2010.

Last month, the City Council agreed to pay $3 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the family of David Smith, a mentally ill man who died after being restrained by two officers at the downtown YMCA in 2010. It was the city's largest settlement in a case of a civilian harmed by police.