City Council April 22, 2026   4/22/2026

Good morning.

Welcome to the Joint Audit Committee and City Council meeting for April 22, 2026.

I'm Elliott Payne and I'm the Chair of the Audit Committee and President of City Council.

I want to offer a friendly reminder to all members, staff, and the public that these meetings are broadcast live to enable greater public participation.

These broadcasts include real-time captioning as a further method to increase the accessibility of our proceedings to the community.

Therefore, all speakers need to be mindful of the rate of their speech so that our captioners can fully capture and transcribe all comments for the broadcast.

We ask all speakers to moderate the speed and clarity of their comments.

At this time, I'm going to call to order this joint meeting of the City Council and the Audit Committee.

I will start this meeting by ensuring we have a quorum of the Audit Committee, adopting our agenda,

after which I will do the same for City Council.

Committee member Chughtai is absent.

Engelhardt?

Here.

Omar is absent.

Williams?

Present.

Chair Payne.

Present.

Let the record reflect that we have a quorum of the Audit Committee.

With that, the agenda for today's meeting is before us.

So moved.

Second.

All right.

That's been moved and seconded.

Member Engelhardt.

Present.

Mr. President, we might need to pause for one moment.

It looks like we've got a captioning issue.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Before I call the roll, I'll just note that captioning did not get to the beginning of the meeting, but I will just summarize very quickly that the Audit Committee did convene its meeting and we have a quorum present.

So I will now call the roll to verify a quorum of the City Council.

Councilmember Whiting is absent.

Stevenson, present.

Rainville, present.

Vetaw, is absent.

Palmisano, present.

Chavez, present.

Warren, is absent.

Shaffer, present.

Wonsley, present.

Chowdhury, is absent.

Vice President Osman, is absent.

There are eight members present.

With that, the agenda for today's meeting is before us.

I will ask for a motion from a member of the City Council to adopt the agenda.

So moved.

Second.

Stevenson.

Aye.

Rainville.

Aye.

Palmisano.

Aye.

Shaffer.

Aye.

President Payne.

Aye.

That carries and the agenda is adopted.

Members of the Audit Committee, we have one item before us today.

Before we take that item on, I want to make a motion to refer the Workforce Optimization Study from Monday's meeting to the City Council for further study.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed say nay.

For our item today, this is a presentation of a report on the after-action reviews assessing the City's handling of the shooting of Davis maturity and the death of Allison Luescher.

Robert Timmerman, the City Auditor, will join us to give that report.

Thank you.

Good morning, Chair Payne.

Good morning, Audit Committee, and good morning, City Council.

My name is Robert Timmerman and I have the honor of being the city's city auditor.

It's a responsibility that I do not take lightly.

Today we will be presenting the results of two after-action reviews related to the death of Allison Luescher and the shooting of Davis Maturi.

First, I want to explain a little about my office.

The Office of City Auditor is a logical place to perform this review, since it is the only function across the city enterprise that was established by voters to be structurally independent of both the administration and city council.

The Office of City Auditor is in fact structurally independent, as it reports neither to the council or the administration, but to you, the Audit Committee, which is required to have a majority comprised of Minneapolis community members.

The Office of City Auditor has jurisdiction over City Council and over each board, commission, committee, department, officer, employee, and other agency who must cooperate with any audit or inquiry and furnish any information that the auditor requests.

It is the duty and obligation of my office to conduct examinations of city operations to improve the management of city policies, functions, and programs.

The Office of City Auditor's mission is to strengthen public trust in city government by delivering independent objective and risk-informed oversight, assurance, and advisory services.

We safeguard public resources by identifying risks, promoting accountability, ensuring compliance, and supporting effective and transparent city operations.

We follow strict generally accepted auditing standards, including the U.S. Government Accountabilities Office's government auditing standards and the Institute of Internal Auditors' global internal audit standards.

More information about our office can be found through the URL on the bottom of this slide.

On June 1, 2025, the Office of City Auditor formally engaged Hogan Adams PLLC through contract to conduct an after-action review of two case files that the Minneapolis Police Department investigated between July 2022 and October 2024.

Both cases involved extensive interactions between MPD and the alleged victims, an escalating pattern of criminal conduct perpetuated against the victims, and multiple police reports.

As identified in the Office of City Auditors' request for proposal and contract with Hogan-Adams, the primary purpose of these two after-action reviews was to collect sufficient and detailed data as to allow for departmental and city leadership level analysis and subsequent adjustments to training, policies and procedures or processes.

The scope of this review included compiling and reviewing information related to each case, interviewing stakeholders, analyzing the facts, policies, and laws applicable to each case, identifying positive practices, and areas for learning and improvement, including any instances in which a city department did not comply with established policy or law.

and we developed recommendations to improve the city's response to similar incidents in the future.

The scope of this review did not determine whether individual city employees violated policy or otherwise in wrongdoing.

Further, this review was not a criminal investigation and no recommendations are made in this report that should be construed as an opinion for consideration in favor or against criminal prosecution.

Welcome.

Thank you, Robert.

And thank you, Chairman Payne, Audit Committee members, and members of the City Council.

As Robert said, I'm Vanya Hogan, and I was the lead attorney at Hogan Adams, working on these after-action reviews and preparing the report on the reviews.

Two associates in my firm, Samantha Hermsen Sanchez and Ellen Currier, worked on these reviews along with

Me, and our paralegal Diana Hand.

We worked very closely with the Office of the City Auditor, conducting most interviews together and meeting regularly to discuss progress on the reviews.

As part of our review, the Office of the City Auditor requested, received, and forwarded the following information regarding both the Motturi and Lucher cases to Hogan-Adams for review.

MPD Police Information Management System reports or police reports, MPD phone logs and relevant email correspondence, Minneapolis Emergency Communications Center computer-aided dispatch reports, and 911 call audio recordings.

The audit team made MPD body worn camera footage available to us to view.

And in addition, we compiled publicly available court documents and news articles related to these case files.

In all, we reviewed approximately 49,000 pages of documents and reviewed more than 25 hours of body worn camera and other video footage.

The Office of City Auditor team members also reviewed and summarized an additional 50 plus hours of body-worn camera footage.

We conducted many interviews as part of this review process.

Hogan Adams and the Auditor team interviewed MPD Chief Brian O'Hara twice and Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty once in connection with both cases.

We conducted interviews with 10 other people in connection to the Moturi case, including Davis Moturi, an assistant Minneapolis city attorney, and MPD officers who were involved in responding to and investigating police reports involving the Moturis.

We also contacted current and former neighbors of the Moturis and were able to interview one of them.

We interviewed 22 people

in connection to the Lucher case, including relatives of Allison Lucher, an assistant Minneapolis city attorney, an American Indian community specialist with the city, a cornerstone victim advocate, employees of the Hennepin County Domestic Abuse Service Center, and MPD officers and staff who are involved in responding to and investigating police reports involving Ms. Lucher and Ms. Lucher's death.

In both cases, we conducted multiple interviews with some of the subjects.

We did face a few limitations, such as early resistance from several MPD officers who requested the involvement of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis.

This disrupted the anticipated timeline of the after-action review process, but ultimately the Office of City Auditor was able to resolve concerns

and coordinate interviews with most of the MPD officers we wish to interview.

There were four officers that we had hoped to interview who we were not able to interview either because they had left the department or were on extended leaves of absence.

Another issue that limited our after action reviews is that the Office of City Auditor does not have authority to directly access Hennepin County records related to these cases.

such as the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Report on Allison Luescher's death.

The Hennepin County Attorney's Office did voluntarily share some records with us and we were able to obtain other county documents that were held in MPD's possession.

All right, Chair Payne, thank you.

I'm briefly going to run through the executive summary that's in the report, and I'd just like to mention that the report is set up in a manner where it has an executive summary that provides some very general high-level bullet points of the findings related with this after-action review, then the lengthy report of the after-action reviews broken out by

Mr. Maturi's case and then Ms. Luescher's case.

We have some appendices within the report that go into timelines and further identify the findings and the recommendations and then MPD's response to the findings and the recommendations is also at the back of the report.

So what I'm going to cover right now is the executive summary, a high-level overview, but just know that we are going to then step into the details of each case and the details of each finding and recommendation.

One of the overarching themes that we identified was MPD's response capacity was limited during the time of both of these cases.

Delayed response times occurred due to staffing shortages, heavy call loads, shift change gaps, and other strategic issues as understaffing and resources lead to.

In the Maturi case, those led to slower responses and that reduced the opportunity to intervene as the threats from Mr. Sawcheck escalated.

In the Leutscher case, delays compounded an already strained domestic abuse investigation.

A second theme we identified was more localized to responding officers' ability to provide accurate policy and legal information to victims.

We observed that some officers demonstrated inconsistent understanding of critical legal and procedural tools, such as the distinction between harassment restraining orders and orders for protection,

warrant execution limits, and the 72-hour rule, which we cover in much more detail in the report itself.

We also provided an analysis of other procedural and legal distinctions in Appendix 3 of the report.

These differences in understanding may have influenced arrest decisions, case escalation, and the accuracy of information provided to victims.

Additionally, on the Luescher case, differing views on crime lab involvement highlighted a need for more consistent protocols.

Another theme we identified was related to MPD's case documentation, evidence gathering, and case continuity.

Reporting practices varied widely, including incomplete witness statements, missing victim forms, inconsistent injury documentation,

and the inconsistent use of police report workflow flags for bias, weapons or repeat conduct.

In the Maturi case, documentation of officer follow-up was inconsistent, reducing situational awareness across shifts and in the Luescher case, incomplete early documentation weakened later investigations.

Next, internal and interagency lapses in communication developed into a theme as our work progressed.

Information did not consistently reach officers or investigators across units or shifts, which resulted in missed opportunities for case escalation.

For example, in the Maturi case, a gun threat report was not escalated before he was shot on a later date.

We learned from both MPD's Chief of Police and the Hennepin County Attorney that the two had not communicated for many months.

We also had learned that the Hennepin County Attorney's Office has attempted in a few instances to reestablish working relationships with MPD.

Top level disconnects like this influence expectations, coordination, and operational alignment.

Strained relationships at senior levels create a ripple effect

through the organization.

I am pleased to share that both Chief O'Hara and County Attorney Moriarty have agreed to a regular cadence of meetings going forward to discuss complex and sensitive cases such as those involving multiple calls for service that tend to lead to difficult resolution.

Another theme we identified that frankly had predominant influences on both cases was messaging from MPD leadership that was either inaccurate or lacked sufficient vetting to ensure that the information being communicated aligned with the intent of the messaging.

Although we did not find any ill will to these misstatements, they unfortunately played into longstanding distrust among communities disproportionately affected by violence.

Finally, we identified a theme of some strong contributions and efforts made by individuals within the police department.

Officers often demonstrated strong situational awareness, de-escalation techniques, victim safety focus, and a desire to facilitate advocacy connections.

Many officers showed initiative through return visits, directed patrols, and efforts to improve victim safety.

Others communicated empathetically and professionally with victims and families during calls, which demonstrated practices that build confidence and trust.

Several officers applied standards accurately and communicated them clearly to victims under challenging circumstances.

As you will see in MPD's response to our findings and recommendations, corrective actions were implemented across many of the areas of concern while these reviews were still underway.

At this time, I'm going to transition into more specific case details related to the shooting of Davis Maturi and associated calls between Maturi and Sawchuk to 911 and the police.

This escalating harassment from John Sawcheck was reported regularly.

I do want to at this time just warn the folks that are listening that there is sensitive information in both the Mathuri case and the Luescher case that we will be describing.

This is a timeline of select events in the Maturi case, including the first 911 call, which was on October 11th, 2023, and subsequent calls to 911 before MPD submitted felony charges at the beginning of April 2024.

Shortly after, on April 8th, 2024, Mr. Maturi obtained a harassment restraining order against Mr. Sawchuk.

The same date as a call alerting officers to a fight in progress between the two men.

During the summer into the fall of 2024, there were more calls to 911, including four reports of a knife, one of which, on July 2nd, 2024, led to Mr. Suchik being charged by the Hennepin County Attorney's Office with a felony on July 10th, 2024.

It's important to note that MPD, through individual officer initiative and through a localized community response team,

regularly drove by Mr. Sawchuck's property or parked their squads in the vicinity, monitoring efforts taken with hopes of making an arrest outside of the home of an otherwise recluse individual with known mental health concerns.

On October 23, 2024, Mr. Maturi was shot.

We learned that SWAT immediately began 24-hour monitoring of Mr. Sawchuck's home, and on October 27, 2024, the physical SWAT operation began to effectuate Mr. Sawchuck's arrest, which occurred in the early morning hours of October 28.

This around-the-clock monitoring of Mr. Sawchuck's home was not shared with the public at the time.

In all, the Maturis made 38 calls to 911 between October 23 and October 24.

These calls were to report alleged ongoing harassment from Mr. Sawchuk.

They led to gross misdemeanor and felony charges and two additional warrants for Mr. Sawchuk's arrest.

MPD repeatedly told Mr. Maturi that officers were unable to arrest Mr. Sawcheck because he always retreated inside his house when they responded to calls or drove by the area.

Some officers believe that they were not legally authorized to enter Mr. Sawcheck's house on an arrest warrant without an additional search warrant.

Others explain that the risk to officer safety was too great to justify entering a private house to execute an arrest warrant for misdemeanor level crimes.

In September 2023, Davis and Caroline Maturi moved into their home on Grand Avenue in Minneapolis.

Their next door neighbor at 3527 Grand Avenue, John Sawchuk, had been the subject of numerous complaints by other neighbors over a period of years.

Mr. Sawcheck had an active misdemeanor warrant for his arrest when the Maturis moved in, stemming from another neighbor's allegations of harassment.

He had also been the subject of prior harassment restraining orders from additional neighbors.

Previously, Mr. Sawcheck had been charged with second-degree assault against a police officer in 2016, but was found not competent to stand trial, and he was subject to a temporary civil commitment the same year.

On October 11, 2023, Mr. Maturi and Mr. Sawcheck discussed a tree on their shared property line.

Mr. Sawcheck became upset that Mr. Maturi intended to trim back or cut that tree.

Later that day, Mr. Maturi made the first two of many 911 calls to report that Mr. Sawcheck had yelled racial slurs at him and threatened him if he touched the tree.

Mr. Sawcheck allegedly had set up a sprinkler to spray water on the side of the Maturi house, causing water damage.

Officers turned off the sprinkler and were later called back the same evening because the sprinkler was on again.

On this second call, officers took the hose and inventoried it at the property in evidence, but no criminal charges were filed based on the incident.

Through the fall and winter of 2023 to 2024, Mr. Sawchuk allegedly continued to yell at and harass the Maturis when he saw them outside their home.

Mr. Sawchuk, who was white, frequently yelled threatening and racially charged comments at Mr. Maturi, who was black.

In February 2024, Mr. Maturi called MPD to report an incident from December 2023 in which Mr. Sawchuk charged at and threatened him.

On March 1st, 2024, Mr. Maturi reported an incident where Mr. Sawcheck approached him holding a gardening tool and threatened him.

On March 11th, 2024, Mr. Maturi reported property damage and harassment to the Minneapolis Police Department.

The corresponding police report noted Mr. Sawcheck's pattern of racially charged harassing and threatening behavior.

Although allegations of abhorrent and racist comments were made on multiple calls, this was the only report in the case that was flagged as involving racial bias.

MPD forwarded the March 1, 2024 and March 11, 2024 police reports to the Hennepin County Attorney's Office and recommended felony charges.

The Hennepin County Attorney's Office declined to file those felony charges,

So subsequently, the Minneapolis City Attorney's Office charged Mr. Sawchuk with gross misdemeanor harassment.

By this point, MPD officers had advised on a few occasions that Mr. Maturi or Ms. Maturi obtain a harassment restraining order against Mr. Sawchuk, which he did on April 8, 2024.

On that same day,

that Mr. Maturi obtained his HRO, officers responded to a 911 call from a witness regarding a physical alteration between Mr. Maturi and Mr. Sawchuk.

When they arrived, officers found Mr. Maturi on top of Mr. Sawchuk restraining him.

The officers that responded were not yet aware of the history of the dispute between Mr. Sawchuk and Mr. Maturi or the harassment restraining order.

Once separated, Mr. Sawchuk refused to identify himself.

He was not detained while officers attempted to identify him.

And when the officers questioning him stepped away briefly to talk to an EMT, Mr. Sawcheck retreated into his house.

Had Mr. Sawcheck been detained and identified, officers would have learned of the open warrants and harassment restraining order.

Mr. Sawcheck's harassment continued to escalate through the spring and summer of 2024.

Mr. Maturi made numerous police reports about Mr. Sawcheck's behavior, including allegations that Mr. Sawcheck yelled threats at the Maturis whenever he saw them outside their home and directed racial slurs and racially charged comments at Mr. Maturi, that he continued disrupting the Maturi's sleep by making loud noises overnight,

that he dumped urine, feces, and garbage onto the Maturi's yard and into their mail slot on their house multiple times, that he threw objects at Mr. Maturi from the upstairs window of his house, that he spat at Mr. Maturi, and he brandished a knife at Mr. Maturi on at least four occasions.

In response to these incidents, MPD patrol officers would respond to the Maturi's home

take a report, collect evidence if applicable, including pictures of property damage and footage from the material security camera or cell phones.

Officers would typically attempt to make contact with Mr. Sawcheck, but he never answered the door.

On June 21st, 2024,

Precinct leadership notified officers that the HRO against Mr. Sawcheck had been served by publication and asked the Minneapolis Emergency Communications Center to extend an alert in the dispatch system to continue notifying responding officers about the HRO for future calls regarding Mr. Sawcheck.

After that, MPD began issuing citations to Mr. Sawcheck for violating the HRO.

The Hennepin County Attorney's Office also charged Mr. Sawcheck with felony threats of violence in July 2024.

A localized MPD community response team was assigned to surveil Mr. Sawcheck's house and arrest him if officers observed him leave.

We were told that officers conducted over 20 drive-bys and visual observation details of various lengths in addition to the incidents in which MPD officers responded to the maturity's 911 calls, although none of these efforts

resulted in an arrest.

On October 14, 2024, Mr. Maturi called 911 to report that Mr. Suchak had leaned out of his window and aimed a firearm at him.

This report was not escalated internally within MPD or forwarded to the Hennepin County Attorney's Office for charging at the time of the incident.

Less than 10 days later, on October 23, 2024, Mr. Maturi was transported by ambulance to the emergency room for a suspected heart attack.

When he arrived, providers discovered a gunshot wound in his neck and a bullet lodged in his spine, and they notified MPD that Mr. Maturi had been shot.

Ms. Maturi reported to MPD that Mr. Maturi had interacted with Mr. Sawcheck earlier that day, and she suspected Mr. Sawcheck shot Mr. Maturi.

Ms. Maturi provided home security videos to MPD showing when Mr. Maturi fell to the ground after being shot, but the video did not capture a suspected shooter.

Hennepin County Attorney charged Mr. Sawcheck with attempted murder the following day.

MPD set up 24-hour surveillance of Mr. Sawcheck's home while its SWAT team completed the risk assessment process for an arrest operation.

The SWAT team led an arrest operation beginning on October 27,

24, and brought Mr. Sawcheck into custody around 1.30 a.m. on October 28th.

Okay, we're going to transition into findings and recommendations now.

You will see with this first finding as an example that we've included the Minneapolis Police Department's response as well as their date of planned implementation.

Thank you.

Our review identified 15 recommendations related to the Maturi case.

MPD, through the Chief of Police, provided a detailed response to all findings and recommendations, which can be found at the back of the report.

With finding one, we found that MPD officers did not review information disseminated to them about Mr. Sawchuk's ongoing harassment before responding to a physical alteration between Mr. Maturi and Mr. Sawchuk on April 8, 2024.

Our recommendation is to develop a policy requiring officers to review information and alerts using in-squad resources such as PIMS and CAD while en route to respond to an incident.

The police department's response was that they will develop a policy for officers to review information and alerts using squad resources when safe and feasible to do so and will not reduce response time for calls involving threats to life safety.

Technology Solutions will be researched by the Professional Standards Bureau that will allow a single officer in a squad car to complete this research with only a few keystrokes to minimize a longer response time.

The date of planned implementation on this recommendation is November of this year.

The second finding is that several incidents in the summer and fall of 2024 were either not assigned to an investigator, not escalated to leadership, or forwarded to the Hennepin County Attorney's Office, or both.

The recommendation is to develop a procedure for case escalation, either within MPD, the Minneapolis County, I'm sorry, the Minneapolis City Attorney's Office, or the Hennepin County Attorney's Office, when a threshold number of calls regarding a specific individual or address have occurred.

MPD's response was that crime analysts are currently tracking neighbor troubles weekly and forwarding them on a police information management system, PIMS, and this is through a recurring report form.

Neighbor to neighbor mediation pilot program is jointly developed with the NAACP.

This has been completed.

Patrol officers and localized community response team members did not create incident reports or otherwise document every drive-by and visual observation detail that they conducted.

Our recommendation was that MPD develop a procedure for documenting drive-by and visual observation details, including dates, times, and resources utilized to better track and document department efforts.

MPD said that a directive will be implemented for officers to use directed patrol nature code that will track details and probable cause pickups conducted in Visinet.

The date of planned implementation is active and should be completed by May 2026.

The fourth finding is that responding officers did not consistently designate that alleged offenses involve bias and or weapons in the general offense information section of police reports.

The recommendation is to reinforce expectations through policy and training for designating bias and weapons involved in incidents within police reports.

MP's response is that the chief will send out an administrative announcement reminding officers of the expectations regarding this recommendation.

Finding five, officers had varying levels of knowledge about applicable laws, policy, and resources.

Our recommendation is to incorporate additional training for officers to better understand the law, policy, and procedures related to HROs, the difference between an HRO and an OFP,

Resources available to help a victim apply for an HRO, service requirements for temporary and permanent HROs and HRO hearing notices, remedies for HRO violations, and the limitations of HROs.

MPD said the training division will work with the city attorney and victims' advocates to conduct remedial training incorporated in current roll call trainings.

This is being actively implemented.

Officers had a varying level of knowledge about applicable laws, policies, and resources.

We recommend that MPD incorporate additional training for officers to better understand the law, policy, and procedure related to the execution of arrest warrants and search warrants.

They should include provisions on how to communicate what is legally and procedurally unallowable.

We recommend that they develop an informational webpage and contact point for members of the public who have questions.

MPD is currently drafting a new warrant policy.

The community can provide feedback via the policy resource hub located on the Minneapolis Police Department's website.

Stops, searches, citations, and arrest policies are actively being worked on through the settlement agreement requirements.

Finding seven, staffing shortages contributed to longer response times and low morale among officers.

We recommend address staffing shortages identified in patrol and investigative units to improve response times and increase MPD's capacity to respond to similar incidents in the future.

MPD said that the M-STAT meetings have added a requirement for inspectors to explain outliers in the response time standards, that they've added a full-time lieutenant to manage city-wide calls for service, and reallocate personnel across borders to improve response times.

A booking element was created that manages jail and hospital wait times has contributed to improved response times by 911 responders.

A designated squad car was created to cover the gap times between shifts, and a prohibition on attending the regular duty roll calls decreased the wait times of callers with in-progress violence.

The Chief mandated that officers' specific requirements in responding to calls to reduce

the response times.

These measures, along with a campaign of roll call appearances by Chief's office, have resulted in CFS response times being at their lowest since early May 2020, when the MPD was staffed with over 860 sworn personnel.

In MPD's response, they have an appendix that lists a number of the special orders and Chief's orders.

They've also included a graph showing response times to priority one and priority two calls.

and they noted that this recommendation was completed prior to the report being sent.

MPD announced that it would restaff the violent criminal apprehension team, which could help with executing high-risk arrest warrants in the future.

Our recommendation is to do just that, to provide the appropriate staff and resources to VCAT.

MPD's response is that the chief created VCAT starting March 22nd of this year.

Multi-agency group focused on assisting investigators pick up suspects and locate key witnesses.

VCAT also assists with locating and arresting people with outstanding warrants.

This has been completed.

Finding nine inexperienced supervisors contributed to longer response times.

Our recommendation is consider lateral hiring options to increase the availability of experienced individuals for investigative and leadership positions.

MPD responded that they hired a lateral deputy chief from, I believe, the Federal Bureau of Investigations in January 2026.

Current lateral hires are at the officer rank, have been assigned into investigative positions.

They have a bit of a wall with the collective bargaining agreement that limits hiring civil servants at ranks of sergeant or lieutenant.

Training for new supervisors will be prioritized as they transfer in and out of patrol and investigative procedures.

SOPs are being updated for investigators.

This is all being actively implemented.

Ten, a backlog of un-executed warrants exist in Hennepin County, including the City of Minneapolis,

We recommend considering the coordination of efforts with county and state law enforcement agencies to manage warrant backlogs.

VCAT includes interagency work, which will expand over a period of time, MPD said.

This is marked as completed.

Finding 11, our review indicated that officers manually compiled calls and reports relating to Mr. Sawcheck and Mr. Maturi.

We recommend that MPD implement changes to the CAD and VisiNet system to automatically group calls related to the same individual or address and compile information from related calls.

MPD is actively working on this, committed to using modern technology to assist and improve their policing efforts.

Their professional development bureau is exploring technology solutions that offers this level of flagging and information sharing.

Finding 12, our review indicated that dispatchers manually enter a flag for repeat calls, alerts for certain addresses or individuals, and the like.

The recommendation is to implement changes to the CAD and VisiNet system to automatically flag repeat calls involving the same individual or address and calls involving an individual with an outstanding warrant or harassment restraining order.

MPD said the Patrol Bureau will collaborate with MEC and expand the capability to flag addresses associated with repeat violent calls, extending this authority to all sworn members rather than limiting it to supervisors.

This is actively being implemented with a target completion date of June this year.

Finding 13, the Hennepin County Attorney's Office declined felony charges and referred the case to the Minneapolis City Attorney's Office in April 2024.

Our recommendation was to develop a written procedure for contacting the Hennepin County Attorney's Office to ensure appropriate charging and prosecution at an earlier stage for cases involving multiple incidents with the same perpetrator and victim.

MPD's response was that the Investigations Bureau will update investigative SOPs to require documentation of discussion between investigators and prosecutors regarding charges for suspects.

They will create an early referral procedure for prosecutors for certain types of cases, repeat victims and weapons.

And they will research technology platforms that can flag cases for multiple victims and suspects.

The department is researching solutions and actively working on this.

My apologies, I did not have that on the screen for you.

The 14th finding is that blue cards, which are what officers leave with victims and witnesses on almost every case, that includes the case number, a listing of many victim resources, and we also include an example of a blue card in the fourth appendix of the report.

But those blue cards contained outdated contact information and resources for victim advocate groups.

Our recommendation is to update and simplify information for victims contained in those blue cards.

MPD said that the Investigations Bureau will update the blue card with resource information quarterly and that they are actively implementing this.

Lastly, Chief O'Hara and County Attorney Moriarty reported a breakdown of communication between MPD and Hennepin County Attorney's Office leadership.

We learned that the Hennepin County Attorney had attempted to reestablish communication and working relations prior to this review and we recommend that these efforts continue and now be led and driven by MPD because we can only make recommendations within the city.

We recommend that MPD work to repair communications between MPD Chief and County Attorney through a mutually agreed upon mechanism such as weekly email update exchanges or monthly meetings to discuss recurring issues such as repeat calls.

The Chief is committed to working with a regular cadence of meetings with the Hennepin County Attorney was their response and this is being actively implemented.

One thing I'm trying to do is manage time, and we also want to make sure that we get an opportunity to publish this.

Colleagues, I know that some of you have a board meeting to go to.

Do we want to try to get through the presentation?

OK. Let's wait.

All right.

Council Member Stevenson.

Sorry.

I would advocate we spend as much time on this as we need to get it done.

Council President Payne, I agree with Council Member Stevenson as well.

This is an important topic and I hope that if we are going to be able to ask questions, we should all be able to ask questions.

Thank you.

I'll also let my colleagues know that my intention is to refer this to City Council so that we can take this up as a body as well.

Just for logistical purposes, I know I also like to spend time on this, but I do know the concern is managing quorum so that we can.

So do we have a sense of when people are trying to leave?

I think as long as we have at least a quorum of one of our bodies, we should be OK. Oh, perfect.

Awesome.

Mr.

Very good.

Thank you, Chair Payne.

I will now transition to details related to the domestic abuse calls made by or on behalf of Allison Luescher.

Domestic abuse perpetuated by her, sorry, domestic abuse perpetuated by her on again, off again partner, Charles Foss.

And ultimately, details related to Ms. Luescher's death and MPD's subsequent investigation.

As you can see on this timeline, which is also Appendix 2 within the report, Ms. Luescher or those close to her made many 911 calls between July 2022 and February 2024 to report domestic violence allegedly perpetuated by Charles Foss.

In fact, there were at least nine calls made by Ms. Luescher and three additional calls made by a family member or neighbor.

Allison Luescher was a 47-year-old Native American woman and longtime Minneapolis resident, and she was found dead in her apartment on February 22nd, 2024.

As I mentioned, in the nearly two years leading up to her death, she made at least nine calls to 911, accusing her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Charles Foss, of domestic abuse.

Ms. Luescher's final 911 call occurred on February 17, 2024, a follow-up to a previous 911 call and police report on February 13, 2024, when Mr. Foss reportedly hit her on her right temple with a closed fist and put his arm around her neck before fleeing the scene.

Because Ms. Luescher's 911 call came in roughly a half an hour after the Minnesota statutory 72-hour rule expired, MPD officers reasoned that Mr. Foss could no longer be arrested and escorted him out of Ms. Luescher's home.

The majority of Ms. Luescher's formal police reports detailed felony-level assault allegations.

Only a small number of those led to subsequent investigations by MPD and none resulted in formal criminal charges against Mr. Foss.

Five days later, on February 22nd, 2024, Ms. Luescher was found dead in her apartment after what appeared to be several days of bodily decomposition.

Ms. Luescher's body showed signs of subdermal hematoma and accumulation of blood between her brain and skull, and her blood tests showed the presence of methamphetamine and fentanyl.

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner ultimately declared the cause of death to be from a subdermal hematoma and that the manner of death was undetermined.

In the days and weeks following the discovery of Ms. Luescher's body, her family and friends and community advocates urged the Minneapolis Police Department to arrest Mr. Foss for her alleged murder.

Ms. Luescher's case was assigned to the MPD Homicide Unit, which ultimately submitted the case to the Hennepin County Attorney's Office for charging.

MPD and the Hennepin County's Attorney's Office both maintain open cases related to Ms. Luescher's death to this date.

As of the date of this report, the Hennepin County Attorney's Office has neither charged Mr. Foss or formally declined charges, and we are aware they have assigned investigative resources to this case.

Regardless of future charging decisions related to Ms. Luescher's death, it's important to clarify that Mr. Foss is not currently a threat to the community, as he has been sentenced to state prison for more than eight years

for unrelated but similarly violent offenses.

With the Lucher case, we have 22 findings and recommendations, and we will structure them and go through them the same we did with the Maturi case.

The first is that once a felony gone on arrival investigation is complete, and gone on arrival meaning that when there is a call that the suspect is no longer on the scene,

These are typically related to domestic abuse types of cases.

But once a felony gone on arrival investigation is complete, investigators will usually, but not always, submit it to the Hennepin County Attorney's Office for charging consideration.

Despite being marked for a rush warrant, the investigator did not submit the investigation of the July 30, 2022 report to the Hennepin County Attorney for charging consideration.

We recommend that MPD add a written protocol that all domestic abuse gone on arrival cases that are investigated must be submitted to the Minneapolis City Attorney's Office or the Hennepin County Attorney's Office for charging consideration.

MPD said that Investigations Bureau will require all GOA domestic cases to be assigned by the next working day when reported.

They will require all domestic assault cases be submitted to the Hennepin County Attorney's Office regardless of victim cooperation for charging decision.

This is actively being implemented and will be complete in the next month and a half.

The second finding, especially during the gap period when shifts change, the decision of whether to call the crime lab involves the discretion of multiple potential MPD supervisors who may not be physically present at the scene.

Officers are now trained to gather and document a great deal of evidence that was once considered the responsibility of the crime lab.

Some interviewees within MPD nonetheless expressed a desire to change the existing policy to require crime lab responses to DOA cases like Ms. Luescher's to ensure that victims of domestic abuse whose deaths may be the result of one or more overlapping causes are treated with an abundance of care and caution.

Our recommendation is that MPD require all DOA cases with a history of domestic abuse be processed in one of the following two ways.

First, that they are treated as a crime scene with forensic evidentiary collection by crime lab professionals.

or that when the MPD investigative unit determines that the crime lab is not necessary for the complete and effective collection of evidence, that that investigator contact the crime lab, explain the determination, and document the crime lab's approval of that determination, and that that investigatory unit remain on the scene until all available and relevant evidence is inventoried.

What this recommendation means is that a DOA case with a history of domestic abuse that comes in during a gap period must either be treated as a crime scene or the responding officer must stay on the scene until the investigative unit comes online and arrives to the DOA scene.

I will note that this recommendation, as well as a couple of others, are in line with some legislation that's being contemplated at the state level right now that would be named Allison's Law.

There are some details within that that a media outlet wrote an article about probably a month and a half ago, and it actually has the draft bill language

I don't know the status of that bill, whether or not that will be heard and move forward this year or next, but there is some nice movement at the state level that aligns with some of these recommendations.

In response to the finding, the Chief has already required the Lieutenant of Homicide to send a team to the scene with cases when there is a history of domestic violence.

This expectation has been communicated.

The third finding is that stalking by a suspect with a domestic relationship with the victim falls under the domestic abuse protocols for responding officers.

But stalking is typically investigated by the Sex Crimes Unit and several officers demonstrated a misunderstanding of the statutory elements of stalking, which provides a valuable arrestable offense for the abusers of victims like Ms. Luescher.

Our recommendation is to revise policy to treat certain types of felony stalking as a domestic abuse offense, which must be routed through and investigated by the domestic assault unit.

Specifically, our recommendation is to treat felony stalking offenses that result from multiple incidents of domestic assault within the statutory timeframe as domestic abuse offenses, both in terms of response protocols and investigatory follow-up.

MPD said that the Investigations Bureau will meet with Hennepin County Attorney's Office to discuss implementation of separating stalking cases from domestic stalking cases.

This is actively being implemented.

Another finding is that Chief O'Hara has already implemented several beneficial policy changes for domestic abuse response, but more are needed to fully address the needs of victims like Ms. Luescher.

We recommend implementing the draft SOPs for domestic violence investigations that were recently proposed by Chief O'Hara.

MPD said that the Investigations Bureau is updating the investigative SOPs to establish documentation requirements for all investigations prior to closing the case.

They are updating the policy manual to reflect the Chief's memo that implemented several efforts of domestic abuse response and protocols, and this is actively being implemented.

The fifth finding is that investigations may hit a wall when victims stop participating or responding to investigators, so other admissible evidence should be gathered when responding to a domestic abuse call to bolster subsequent chargeability.

We recommend requiring officers to offer, and when appropriate, strongly recommend EMS services to ensure domestic abuse victims are not minimizing injuries dealing with invisible brain trauma or otherwise.

while also creating a stronger body of admissible hearsay evidence should a victim become uncooperative with prosecution.

Officers should inform victims whether they are eligible for EMS or other medical services free of charge.

MPD said that the training division will ensure training will require sworn members to strongly encourage EMS and advocacy services per the domestic assault pilot project, which will be expanding citywide soon.

They said the coordination of training for the citywide domestic assault pilot project is in progress.

Our sixth finding is that American Indian women face disproportionately high levels of violence and MPD has a well-documented history of bias towards the urban native population.

This is a phrase from the DOJ consent decree.

MPD policy requires responding officers to identify witnesses, but requiring statements from witnesses at the scene would provide valuable admissible evidence for subsequent prosecutions.

To clarify, the policy requires identification, but not statements.

In two instances, a family member of Ms. Luescher could have been interviewed, and a neighbor could have been interviewed for additional evidentiary statements.

Our recommendation is to implement policies consistent with recommendations in the Global Rights for Women Report, which I believe was published in 2022.

Thank you.

and those findings called for a mandated training aimed at recognizing and mitigating issues of explicit and implicit bias towards certain demographics of victims and adapt communication with victims based on that training.

and add written protocols that witnesses including 911 callers, neighbors who may have overheard the domestic abuse and those who the victim may have made statements to regarding the domestic abuse must be thoroughly interviewed on scene including documentation of their contact information.

MPD said that domestic protocols are instructed in the academy and at in-service department-wide training in their basic report writing training that the training division will add multicultural remedial training to the current procedural justice, implicit bias, and active bystander law enforcement training in 2027.

The training component is also expanded under the settlement agreement and the consent decree that they are working to create updates based on.

The cultural community mentors will continue to be assigned to officers in training in the academy and continuing academy training program of requiring recruits to learn different cultures and present their findings to their classmates.

This is actively being implemented.

The seventh finding is that officers are required to gather available evidence at the scene, but are hesitant to engage in proactive policing.

Officers can, but don't typically consider alternative possible arrestable offenses.

The decision of whether to assign a felony GOA case to an investigator is highly dependent on information in the police report.

We recommend that MPD ensure through documentation of property crimes any

through the documentation of other property crimes with any accompanying domestic abuse offenses.

MPD said that the training division will incorporate requiring officers to strongly encourage EMS and advocacy services.

Investigations Bureau will include the ongoing domestic assault protocol that is being implemented from a pilot to a citywide program, and that training modules will be coordinated to ensure efficiency.

This is actively being implemented.

Finding 8.

The July 30, 2022 report that was filed after a call to Ms. Luescher's residence was marked for immediate submission to the Hennepin County Attorney's Office for a rush warrant.

That direction from a DAS prosecutor to MPD was not followed by the domestic assault unit.

Our recommendation is to ensure that the assigned DAS prosecutor's recommendations are followed with respect to prioritizing investigations of certain gone on arrivals.

And that's submitting cases without investigation for warrants when requested.

MPD said the Investigations Bureau will develop a means of prioritizing cases according to the set recommendations of repeat suspects and victims and weapons calls.

They will update the investigative standard operating procedure to ensure coordination and communication between investigators and prosecutors are occurring on a regular basis and they will provide guidance to sworn personnel on Hennepin County Attorney's Office recommendations related to domestic assaults, including the requirement to follow those recommendations.

They will require all rush warrants to be immediately assigned.

The department is currently researching solutions on how to implement this.

Nine is that several officers seem confused about the intricacies of the 72-hour rule, and the public has shared that confusion with respect to Ms. Luescher's case.

Officers share a common desire to serve victims of domestic abuse and provide available services to them.

The recommendation is to require officers to attend in-person training on responding to domestic abuse GOA cases, including training on the 72-hour rule for domestic abuse, misdemeanor arrests, and best practices for communicating with and interviewing victims and providing services to them.

We recommend that they discuss how this training can be implemented as a post, a state level training, as well as in-house within MPD.

Again, we cannot make recommendations to the county or the state level, but MPD certainly can work on driving those conversations.

MPD's response is that the training division will be adding to the 2027 annual training curriculum these recommendations.

They will be adding training on new domestic policy once the policy is in place.

And the chief's memo included this change in their COPS alert, which is the keeping our police safe alert, similar to a be on the lookout type of alert that goes out to squad cars.

That alert policy I know has been updated and these other items are in the works.

Finding 10.

While Ms. Lucher did not volunteer additional allegations during her February 17, 2024 interaction with MPD, best practice would include questioning Ms. Lucher to see if any additional criminal activity had occurred since the February 13 incident.

New allegations, like Ms. Lucher being fearful of Mr. Foss or being physically or verbally assaulted by Mr. Foss, may have given rise to a new arrestable offense.

We recommend requiring officers to be trained to analyze any potential arrestable crime when a domestic abuse suspect is present on arrival, especially in cases of repeat offenders.

This includes considering crimes outside of those specifically named by the victim, such as

considering burglary is a possibility on a strangulation call.

Engaging in detailed questioning of victims to rule out or establish any potential domestic abuse related offenses.

MPD said that the training division will be adding to its 2027 curriculum these recommendations that they will be adding training on new domestic policy once the policy is completed.

Finding 11 is that Chief O'Hara received incomplete and inaccurate information related to Ms. Luescher's cause and manner of death, which he relied upon in making problematic public statements.

Our recommendation is to ensure that public statements are not made before written official documentation is obtained supporting those statements, especially with respect to medical examiner conclusions and reports.

MPD said that their public information officers are responsible for reviewing information prior to release.

They will institute a quality control process to ensure all information is reviewed for accuracy.

It is noteworthy that MPD did not obtain the official medical examiner's report for its homicide investigation until we requested a copy from them nearly two years after Ms. Lucier's death.

The investigation had previously relied on information shared over the phone, which led to a literal game of telephone, ultimately relaying inconsistent information to the chief of police.

Staffing shortages have plagued the MPD for years, including a severe staffing shortage of domestic assault unit investigators,

We recommend the prioritization of hiring investigators in the Domestic Assault Unit, including the exploration of lateral hires from different police departments.

MPD recently hired a deputy chief from the FBI in February of this year.

Lateral hires at the officer rank that have been placed into investigative assignments.

They did note, and I said this earlier, but the collective bargaining agreement limits some hiring practices for lateral hiring.

They will prioritize training for new supervisors as part of onboarding.

They have brought on a civilian case investigator and sworn member were added to the domestic unit.

and domestic GOA cases are assigned to additional investigators outside of the domestic unit to ensure these cases receive appropriate attention.

13, it is common practice but not required to research suspect information history on the way to a call.

Officer's ability to do so is highly dependent on information provided by 911 dispatchers.

We recommend implementing changes to the CAD and VisiNet system to associate previous related calls and compile information from all calls.

The Professional Standards Bureau will be exploring technology solutions that allow a single officer in a squad to complete research without obstruction or safety issues.

MPD is hoping to have this complete by November 2026.

14, it is common practice but not required to research suspect information in history on the way to a call.

Officer's ability to do so is highly dependent on information.

I think, is this the same finding?

I think it is.

We'll go to 15.

Officers share a widespread desire to serve victims of domestic abuse and common frustration with the feasibility of connecting victims to available services.

Victims may become increasingly unwilling to participate in the prosecution of their case when they hit roadblocks in accessing services.

We recommend exploring the feasibility and costs of a pilot program to test the use of domestic violence advocate who concurrently works with police officers, responds to all GOA domestic abuse calls, and works with victims on site to fill out orders for protection and provide other resources.

This will allow police to move on to the next call while the advocate remains with the victim working on paperwork and safety planning.

This advocate would respond to the scene only after officers had confirmed the suspect was no longer on site.

They would report back to the Audit Committee.

We ask that MPD report back to the Audit Committee once the feasibility and costs of such a pilot program have been analyzed.

MPD said that they will coordinate with the Office of Community Safety to explore these options with a target date of November this year.

Finding 16, the prominent issue with the investigation of the February 27, 2023 report was that excessive amount of time that had passed between the date of the incident and a charging decision by the Hennepin County Attorney's Office, albeit a deferral rather than a charge or declination, which greatly exceeded HCAO's policy for charging timelines.

I want to point out we did not assess Hennepin County Attorney's Office's policies, procedures, practices, as that is not within our purview.

and so the recommendation with this is to be driven by MPD to work with the Hennepin County Attorney's Office to work on implementing a charging timeline for domestic abuse GOA cases that would require a deferral to happen in a shorter time frame than that required for charging and dismissal, allowing investigators to gather additional evidence in a shorter window of time after the incident report.

MPD said the Investigations Bureau will require regular check-ins with Hennepin County Attorney's Office and the assigned investigators.

They will improve coordination between investigators and prosecutors, especially early on.

They will create a follow-up timeline for investigators according to these recommendations.

And that they have recently added to their M-STAT meeting investigative commanders to brief charging decisions and outcomes on significant cases.

Finding 17, officers expressed an interest in hearing feedback from prosecutors regarding potential evidentiary issues that made the case less chargeable in order to better document or gather evidence, learn, going into future calls.

The recommendation is to engage in training with the domestic assault unit of MPD to discuss what makes a case chargeable or not chargeable and what evidence to look for and submit to Hennepin County Attorney.

The training division will be coordinating and incorporating the new domestic policy was MPD's response and that they are actively working on that.

Finding 18, based on officer input, developing a notification system where prosecutors follow up with the arresting officer and briefly explain their decision to charge, release, and or ask for a certain amount of bail for a suspect may have a positive impact.

Sorry, rather than MPD response, this should be recommendation that MPD work with the Hennepin County Attorney's Office to create a process by which arresting officers can obtain optional updates on the result of their arrest and any evidentiary issues that lead to declination of charges.

MPD said that the Investigations Bureau will implement a system of coordinating investigations and prosecutors weekly.

They will create performance metrics for investigators.

They will have discussions with the Hennepin County Attorney's Office to assign prosecutors as liaisons.

They will notify sworn members if they want a case follow-up, and patterns of case declines could be addressed in training or a memo to departments to improve services.

MSTAT is already capturing positive highlights of effective police work including cases that have been charged.

The department is currently researching solutions for active implementation.

Finding 19, MPD leadership and the Hennepin County Attorney's Office leadership have experienced a strained and uncooperative relationship for years which has created a negative trickle-down effect in MPD ranks.

As I mentioned, the Hennepin County Attorney's Office has attempted to reach out on a couple occasions to strengthen or rebuild relationships.

We are now asking MPD to take the lead and participate in those conversations to repair respectful communication between the Chief and the County Attorney through mutually agreed upon mechanisms such as weekly or monthly email updates or quarterly phone call updates.

MPD said the Chief is committed to working with a regular cadence of meetings with the Hennepin County Attorney.

I want to share too that the Hennepin County Attorney also has communicated that she wants to continue to strengthen communications and is committed to more attempts at doing so.

Finding 20, we're getting close, we have 22.

Officers share a widespread desire to serve victims of domestic abuse and a common frustration with the feasibility of connecting victims to available services.

Victims may become increasingly unwilling to participate in the prosecution of their case when they hit roadblocks in accessing services.

We recommend that the blue card be updated with current resources and information, including contact information specific to domestic abuse victims' resources.

This may be included on a separate and unique card for domestic abuse victims if it's less burdensome or more feasible to develop.

Cards should have a step-by-step information guide for victims to follow, not just a list of phone numbers.

The idea is to make this as easy as possible for victims to follow through on.

MPD said the Investigations Bureau is updating the blue card with resources.

They're exploring developing a domestic resource card and educating the community on domestic victim services already available online.

21.

With the well-known historical backdrop of violence against Native American women and MPD's documented bias towards the urban Native population, public comments by MPD regarding violence against Native women are heavily scrutinized and should be held to a high standard.

We recommend that MPD is required to issue a letter or other statement to the family of Ms. Luescher apologizing for public misstatements related to the medical examiner's findings and report.

MPD recently issued a statement to the Lutscher family, which they included in their response, appendix N.

Early in our work, after several conversations with members of the Lucher family and various advocacy groups, it became clear that one of the primary requests was for a public apology from the Minneapolis Police Department, and specifically the Chief of Police, related to MPD's handling of this case, and specifically related to his words at early press conferences.

Although there is a lot of past pain and current unknowns about the future of this case, there is a real opportunity for forward-focused conversation.

I'm pleased that we received commitment from both the Chief and the family of Ms. Luescher that they would be willing to meet.

And as I mentioned earlier this week or late last week, they did have this meeting.

Chief O'Hara followed up with a public statement that specifically stated,

I am grateful to Allison's family and to community members who met with us and are willing to continue to work with us on Allison's case, as well as improving our response in domestic violence in general.

I am sorry for the harm caused by my words.

That statement caused real pain to the family, to those who loved her, and to the broader community.

I take responsibility for that impact.

While I intended no harm and my comments were based on incomplete information provided to me, I recognize that intent does not lessen the harm.

While I know we have high legal burden to overcome, we are committed to continuing forward with a fresh look on this case and continuing to enhance our response to domestic violence in general.

We are asking anyone in the community who may have information regarding this case to come forward.

Lastly,

Overall, the initial public response to Ms. Lucher's death seemed to overly emphasize her substance abuse history as the underlying cause of her death, a trend which is all too familiar to indigenous organizations, advocates, and community members who are justifiably weary of public officials overlooking or under-investigating the deaths of native women who experience disproportionate rates of violence and murder compared to other demographics.

Those statistics are particularly troubling in Minneapolis where law enforcement has a recent documented track record of discriminating and perpetuating bias against the urban native population.

The recommendation related to this finding is to create an American Indian community liaison position at an executive level who is responsible for citywide advocacy and response.

Minneapolis police said they will speak to the mayor's office regarding this recommendation and are actively pursuing a resolution.

I want to thank Mr. Maturi and the family and friends of Allison Luescher who participated in this review.

Your stories, accounts, and evidence made clear the urgency of addressing a system in need of repair.

They are stories and accounts that intersect with those we hear about in other tragedies, such as the death of Mariah Samuels.

Many of the real and perceived gaps in the investigation into her domestic abuse and death parallel those of Ms. Luescher's.

It is not lost on me that justice delayed is painful, and I hope that for Ms. Samuel's family, the murderer's recent conviction brings some closure.

My hope is that connections strengthen, and that the same sense of justice can ultimately be realized by Mr. Maturi and the family and friends of Ms. Luescher.

I also want to thank the officers and leaders within MPD and at the Hennepin County Attorney's Office who spoke candidly with us, including the Chief of Police and including the Hennepin County Attorney.

Many of you expressed a genuine commitment to serving our community.

You shared your frustrations with what is not working well and offered thoughtful ideas to improve an imperfect system.

I want to recognize our contracted partners at Hogan Adams.

Your tireless work, expertise, and balance guidance enhance the independence and objectivity of this review.

Your lead on writing the report certainly has resulted in some meaningful and timely recommendations.

And finally, I offer my sincere appreciation to the staff of the Office of City Auditor, who have carried this work forward.

Your commitment to public service is admirable and does not go unnoticed.

These reviews highlight opportunities for the city and for MPD to strengthen how high risk situations are documented, escalated, and addressed.

While the cases examined were tragic and distinct, the lessons drawn from them point to systemic improvements that can enhance safety, coordination, and decision making across future responses.

Implementing the recommendations in this report can help ensure that individual efforts are supported by clear structures, consistent practices, and strong leadership alignment.

Continued progress will require sustained attention and collaboration across the department and its partners.

By addressing the issues identified in these cases and building on the promising practices already underway, the Minneapolis Police Department and the City of Minneapolis can move toward a more responsive, transparent, and resilient public safety system.

Our hope is that this work contributes to lasting improvements that better serve all residents.

Thank you, Mr. Timmerman.

I'm going to try to manage a few things here procedurally and time-wise.

While we have our quorum of both bodies here, I'm going to make sure we get our motions done.

And then I've confirmed that we have a quorum of audit that is flexible so that we can have a robust conversation.

So I'm going to try to get these motions done, and then we'll go into discussion.

So for our audit committee, I'm going to direct the clerk to receive and file this report.

And then I would like a motion.

to publish this report.

Is there a member that can make that motion from the audit committee?

So moved.

Moved and seconded.

Member Chughtai?

Aye.

Englehardt?

Aye.

Hose-Bein?

Aye.

Williams?

Aye.

Chair Payne.

Aye.

That carries and then I would like for the City Council to have an opportunity to further review and study this report and so can somebody make a motion to refer this item to City Council?

All right.

Well, I'd like to get it into a committee for further study.

So without objection, let's just refer this to the Council to make that consideration.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

Okay, excellent.

I also have a second point of order.

Okay, let's work that way.

Let's go ahead and open up speaker management.

Any questions from any members of either body at this time?

Thank you, President Payne.

Before I ask my questions, I want to take a moment to remember Allison Luescher.

She was a daughter, a mother, a beautiful member of our community.

And I want to be clear that the findings of this after action review represent a devastating pattern of what happens to missing and murdered indigenous relatives.

In particular, indigenous women and girls go missing and face disproportionately high levels of violence.

Sadly, too often their cases are met with indifference, delayed response, and outright dismissal by the very same systems meant to protect them.

And I want to be clear that this case is no different.

Allison's family has waited for answers and accountability for too long.

And before I ask my questions, I just want to thank Jana, the aunt of Allison Lou Sher for her relentless fight for justice and accountability and for not letting go and making sure that these answers come to light.

I do have a question.

On February 11th,

2025, K-11 posted an article about Chief O'Hara's comment regarding Allison Lutris' case where he said, quote, I want to assure the public the MPD handled those cases in accordance with established policy and the law.

I also want to emphasize that despite what's being said, our police officers and our investigators care very deeply about fighting justice for Allison and the very victims of crime in our city.

Mr. O'Hara also said in the Star Tribune that someone dead and decomposed with needles everywhere is not a sign that a crime occurred.

Chief O'Hara, welcome to the chambers.

Council President, Council Member, no.

As the City Auditor has said, I have met with family, met with community members.

I have privately had conversation expressing my regret.

The public statement was read here.

I know

I know our investigators have done some work after that meeting.

I know the Hennepin County Attorney's Office has done a lot of work over the course of that time, and we remain committed.

Mr. O'Hara, I see the letter that you sent here that is a part of the review, but I still don't know what statement you said to Allison's family.

Council President, Council Member, that was a private conversation we had.

Yes, Council President, Council Member.

Yes, of course.

Jana is here.

Jana again, I apologize, I'm sorry.

Thank you.

Did you know that a member of your police department was quoted in the media saying the fact that she is Native bears no weight on how we investigated or handled this case?

Council President, Council Member, I don't know the officer or the context of that.

I understand of course that we all carry implicit bias.

I understand of course that there is demonstrated history in general of disparate outcomes, particularly for Native Americans in the community.

I'll ask one more time because I don't think I got an answer to my question.

A member of the Minneapolis Police Department said the fact that she is Native bears no weight on how we investigated or handled this case.

I can say that as the auditor mentioned, I do believe that people, many people in the police department, were doing their best in both of these cases.

And I do believe people had felt that way.

Council President, Council Member, I'm sorry.

Do you feel that way?

I'm trying to be as accurate as possible.

I do believe people were sincere in their efforts.

And although they may believe that, that doesn't necessarily mean that there aren't things that we need to do differently.

I think that's very challenging.

Thank you.

Thank you President Payne.

I also have a few questions but beforehand I just want to say mostly thank you to our community members as well as the City Auditor for fulfilling this request.

Myself, I believe Council President Payne and Council Member Chavez brought this motion last year.

In response to the public outcry from our residents, specifically Allison Lussier's family, but I also think it's important to highlight victims that both proceeded during that time and even afterwards with Davis Matori being

also one of the flagship incidents that triggered our need to evaluate how are we truly handling both hate crimes and domestic violent cases.

It's seen the overlap there when it pertains to black, brown, indigenous, and women or those experiencing intimate partner violence not receiving the high quality of public safety services that they deserve and that they pay for.

And I also think it's important to highlight Mariah Samuels, though who's

Specific incident is not referenced in this report.

The same findings that we just were

essentially explained or given an explanation of also dived into why she and her family didn't receive the service that quite literally could have saved her life as well.

So I just want to uplift our community members for constantly holding us accountable to then hold our police department and other city leadership such as the mayor accountable and making sure that

We are responsive to you all's needs and that there should be accountability when that's not had.

And actually, in light of that accountability, I think that was a positive step to request that Allison Lussier and her family and community receive a public apology.

I also wanted to know, where was that also for Davis-Maturi?

Davis-Maturi, following.

The publication and media kind of frenzy around his case that all came from the fact that a warrant had not been executed.

And he named, he reached out, as indicated in your report, over 11 times.

And I saw the emails myself, not only just to MPD, I don't think the timeline specifies the nature of that outreach, but there were emails

where Chief O'Hara, where Mayor Jacob Frey and Davis Matory were all a part of and that was pleased for his life.

And there's one in particular where he named, This Man is Gonna Kill Me.

And in light of that,

Chief O'Hara, I would say this is an opportunity for you.

In the media response to Davis-Maturi, there was almost blaming of him for not coming forward.

So I would like to know what is the reconciliation efforts that's been made to Davis-Maturi as well, and if there has been also to Mariah Samuels.

Mr. Timmerman.

Chair Payne, Councilmember Wonsley, we believe that the media has reported on public apology to Mr. Martire.

I'm not saying that that shouldn't happen here, shouldn't happen again, but it is also a paramount demand that was specifically related to the Lucher case.

Ms. Williams, in fact, at the mayor's inauguration, at your inauguration,

stood at the front of that theater and handed the mayor a piece of paper and the first thing on it said, we want an apology.

That is why the focus here on this particular case was for that public apology.

I do want to say, and I don't want to discount any need or desire to ask the chief or the commissioner any questions, I do want to ask that we try to focus on what the audit

Team can answer today and what our consultants can answer today.

I think you've taken a vote to move this to another committee and I think the Chief and the Commissioner have both committed to being at that meeting.

Yeah, I mean, we've already set a precedent with inviting up staff, and I did make the note of why this was not part of your recommendations.

From my understanding, there were, as you highlighted, public apologies made by the department related to Davis-Maturi

Chair Payne, Councilmember Wonsley, I agree with you.

I think this belongs in that same type of setting.

I am just speaking primarily to logistics of what we're here to talk about and I also think that there is a great opportunity for further collaboration with my office.

We have a lot of ideas that have come from this.

We shared 32 of them.

37 of them today with you.

But this is a conversation that we are more than willing to continue having with the council, with the audit committee, with the families, and not just the Maturis and Ms. Luescher's family, and also the police department.

I think these conversations have to continue.

And as I mentioned, my ultimate hope is that they move towards that future resolution.

Next question, looking at page 27.

I'm interested in audits evaluation of some of the kind of recommendations or responses that NPD submitted as follow-up.

If you all are looking at if these are actually operational or are they essentially volunteer or in-kind services, I bring this up in reference to the neighbor-to-neighbor mediation pilot program that I know in our Public Health and Safety Committee last year we received a

So I'm interested in how some of these in-kinded services kind of factors into

like meeting the criteria of expectations in this findings.

Oh, I'm looking at the presentation, sorry, slide 27.

It's related to findings, finding number two, and again MPD responds to reference the neighbor-to-neighbor mediation pilot program as being a way to respond to the recommendation of developing a procedure for case escalation either within MPD, the

Minneapolis City Attorney's Office or the Hennepin County Attorney's Office when a threshold number of calls regarding a specific individual or address have occurred.

I only ask this because again, I from my understanding in their presentation, this is an external organization.

It's not clear how data is then coordinated if we're not funding them.

And it's not clear how then they relate to, not just NPD, but the city attorney, then Hennepin County, so that there is consistent and standardized tracking of this information.

So that escalation, when it is happening, can actually be monitored.

Chair Payne, Councilmember Wonsley, that is certainly something that I would have to defer to MPD.

This was the language of our finding and our recommendation based on the evidence that we had in our work.

Their response though, we did not further look into those systems in place, but that is certainly something that I'd be willing to have a conversation with you as I get more information.

Then go on to presentation slide findings number five.

This might also be just follow up because I think this is a situation where I thought MPD's response was already happening through the domestic abuse project pilot that is referenced in another part of your presentation and report.

But I thought this was work already underway and had been happening based off of a presentation that we received from them

This is finding number five, slide number 30, where it's the recommendation to incorporate additional training for officers to better understand the law, policy and procedure related to harassment restraining orders, the differences between harassment restraining order or order of protection and resources available to help victims apply for those type of things.

and MPD response says the training division will work with the city attorney and victims advocate to conduct remedial training incorporated in current roll call trainings.

And this is what I'm referencing of when we had that robust presentation from the domestic abuse project.

OK, I'll follow up with our clerks with those questions and any others that might have to be directed to MPD.

The next one is related to slide 77.

I wanted clarification on this one.

This is fighting 15.

Coordinate with the Office of Community Safety to explore options and actually maybe one of our council members, specifically our budget chair, Chuck Tye might have a little bit more clarity on because I know you led on this specifically, but it says MPD's response towards making sure that there's more expanded services to serve victims of domestic abuse.

MPD response says that they're going to coordinate with the Office of Community Safety to explore more options with this.

This is one where I thought the body back in 2023 and by the body council we funded domestic navigate sorry domestic violence navigators and I thought they had been absorbed in the police department to do exactly this the things that we are talking about but already knew what's happening back in 2023.

So I just wanted to get a sense of it's

Yes, through the Chair, thank you.

Would love to just, since we're in a public forum, state really clearly that as part of the, I want to say 2023 budget, the

City Council funded three domestic violence navigators and a supervisor for the domestic violence navigator team.

Prior to that there had been one domestic violence navigator for the entirety of the city, managing a caseload that is quite literally impossible to manage.

Your recollection is absolutely correct, Council Member Wonsley, that in the subsequent year following this investment, all domestic violence navigators were moved into the Minneapolis Police Department so that they could have better access to systems like PIMS.

And that, to date, is the case that there are

Thank you for that, Clary.

This might be also another area of follow-up and just to hear about the utilization or maybe the underutilization of those navigators because I'm very confused to see explore more options with OCS when we gave

the department a tool to do exactly this work in the form of three FTE staff.

So I just wanted more clarity on what was happening with those navigators and essentially what is OCS's or the Office of Community Safety Leadership, what are these options that they're contemplating and if the navigators are a part of that.

With that, those are the only questions that I had.

Again, I'll follow up with the clerks with the texts of those questions.

And then, again, I'm also looking forward to having the fuller, robust conversation specifically with OCS and MPD themselves and also other impacted departments such as the City Attorney's Office.

Something else to name is we're currently playing tag around

A follow-up presentation, be it in COW or the Public Health and Safety Committee on this matter, but also NPD's internal investigation assessment that they did last summer in response to Davis-Maturi's shooting.

So this body passed a legislative directive also last year asking for that information since that was already done ahead of this audit.

Ideally, NPD and OCS will be giving that presentation.

We're currently trying to solidify a date, but we also are making the opportunity to make sure that community members can come and see that presentation.

Also, potentially have a public comment to also provide

Your feedback and your thoughts on the matter as well.

Thank you, Chair Payne.

Thank you.

I'm going to take, as a community member on the audit committee, I'm going to go a little audit related here.

And I just wanted to highlight and elevate, Mr. Timmerman, your comment at the beginning that audit is truly an effort of public trust.

And I want to thank you and your team of how this works.

I know sometimes audit can feel around the issue, but it really can lead to future.

improvements, even though they don't feel direct in the moment.

So I just want to really appreciate that.

And thank you and your team for doing this and the external editors.

From an audit perspective, I have a couple of just general questions and maybe this is just to help folks that maybe are in the room that aren't aware of the audit process to help clarify what some of these findings and recommendations mean.

One kind of high level question with both after action reviews and the findings, I'm not used to not seeing dates.

So I see that there are some that are listed as completed, some that are actively implemented with a date, and then there are some that are just actively implemented and then researching solutions.

So I just wanted to understand the definitions of those four categories as these findings

Mr. Timmerman?

Chair Payne and committee member, that is a really good question.

I'm glad that you brought that up.

So the traditional process for an audit finding, the path it takes, is that we present it to the audit committee with recommendations.

We have already reached out to management, received their corrective action.

So what you've seen today is the normal process.

And then what we do is we regularly monitor those findings for resolution.

At the end of an audit, like you see with this, we complete the work, we send the results to the auditee, we ask for a corrective action plan that addresses every recommendation.

We cannot tell them what to write.

We do suggest on what they include, such as dates of planned implementation, such as what unit, what individual may be responsible for that.

And then, as our regular tracking,

Before every audit committee, every two months, we follow up with management.

We understand or gain an understanding of progress.

And so for this particular audit, it will be the same thing.

We will follow up on all 37 recommendations.

The question about dates, especially for those ones that are marked as complete, that is, again, not a format that we ask for, but I think that kind of brings to light that when we follow up on the ones that are considered open and are still active, we'll make sure to get some additional detail on those.

But know that these 37 findings, although a couple of them cross over, so I think we counted it's about 30 or so,

Thank you for that and on another note just back to kind of community trust and in your executive overview and also on slide 14 public communication and community trust as a community member on this I really hope that as we continue to follow up there's additional highlight of that effort because all of this falls apart without that and I would say in appendix N of the report which is the

MPD response, that feels like a piece that maybe still needs to be continued to be advocated for with MPD.

And I'm not as well versed as the council on how we move forward with some of these things,

I do see a few of these findings and responses as possible avenues for the audit committee and the audit team to maybe look at in addition to the standard audit work and I would like to just as we move forward with these recommendations flag a few of those that really are around that public trust piece to ensure that we're having appropriate responses and

Interaction on those and I think that would also be in line with some of the other comments made where there's other paths that all Converge on this and I think we can continue to work on that In June and in future audit committees.

Thank you Before I call on councilmember Stevenson, I was gonna check with the clerk's I know you've been working furiously to get it uploaded to limbs.

Chair Payne, yes, it has been completed.

I just emailed all the Council members with the links.

The report and the presentation are both online in LIMS.

They're in two separate files because this is a joint meeting of the Audit Committee and the City Council.

I'll read the legislative file, the Council file, just since that's maybe a little bit more commonly accessed.

It's file 2026-00453.

Thank you for that update.

I know that we ran out of the printed copies in the chamber so for anybody following along you can now read the full report.

Thank you.

I first want to start off by thanking Mr. Maturi and his family and friends for their advocacy on his case and

Same goes for the family of Allison Lussier and the community at large, as well as the family and community around Mariah Samuels.

Thank you for your advocacy.

We really wouldn't be here having this discussion without you, so I really, really appreciate that.

I want to thank the audit staff.

This is a good body of work.

Thank you.

I'm happy that you're here in our city and I'm happy that you put this together.

Thank you.

I have a ton of questions and comments and things to dig into and I think much of that we'll get into at a later date when this comes before the City Council.

But I have a few things I wanted to flag for staff so that we can have a better conversation.

later and a couple questions for audit while you're here.

The first is you had mentioned early in the report on Mr. Maturi's case that you had spoken to most but not all officers that you wanted to speak to.

Chair Payne, Councilmember Stevenson, great question.

We did run into some frustration with not being able to talk to a few officers.

I will say that after we got through some

Coming to understanding with the police department and specifically the Minneapolis Police Federation, we had great cooperation from individual officers, leaders within the organization.

In fact, we had the chief and the commissioner, the chief specifically put out a policy directive to communicate with us.

The officers we were unable to speak to, one of them had left the department and we do not have authority to subpoena testimony and three others were on extended leaves of absence and so for the same reasons we were unable to speak with them.

I do think that

In both the Lucher and the Maturi case, we still had very thorough response and cooperation from MPD.

OK.

In the initial time when you were having trouble speaking with the officers, do you have any specific recommendations about

I do, and thank you for that question, Chair Payne and Councilmember Stevenson.

I think as far as this review goes and culturally within the city itself, I think through now going through this once very publicly to get cooperation from individual officers,

I think that through the Commissioner and the Chief's directives it is clear that they must follow this city charter which requires them to cooperate with audit.

The recommendation that I have for council actually is a conversation that started and that is we are going to be seeking subpoena authority for our office that aligns with that of the state auditor and the legislative auditor.

I think being the the largest city in the state of Minnesota it makes sense for us to have language that is parallel to that of those audit entities and

And so that is the conversation that we've started.

It does require state legislation and potentially some tweaks to city ordinance beyond that.

Please reach out to my office when you're ready for city ordinance.

I'd love to help champion that with you.

I have a question that first came up during Finding 4 on Mr. Maturi's case, but then was basically a question I had for all the following findings as well, and maybe also for the questions I just had.

And that's basically

What accountability is being done to make sure that this is followed?

So in finding for the recommendation reinforce expectations through policy and training for designating bias and weapons involved in incidents within police reports.

There's some good responses from MPD here.

It says active implementation.

But I want to know whether this is a question for you or maybe it's a question for the police chief.

I'm not sure.

What are we going to have on the back end for after this is implemented?

Chair Payne and Councilmember Stevenson, that's a really good question and you're thinking like an auditor here because the recommendation, as you noted, is to create something.

The response is, we've created it.

Audit often comes in, but we should not be the first.

Every department within the city needs to manage their own risks.

They need to manage their own expectations.

And that includes the police department.

It's beyond just this one recommendation, it's with all policy, it's with all procedures, and this is specific to how reports are being completed.

There needs to be an internal mechanism if not, and I think MPD to an extent does have this.

So to get to the specific answer, I think that's a question for someone else.

But I would say that from audit's perspective, if there isn't that review within the department itself, that's problematic.

Okay, yeah.

Council President, Council Member, thank you.

Yes, there's a lot, obviously dozens of findings.

We will be meeting internally each week to track implementation.

There's a variety of people who are responsible for different parts of it.

Some of them, I know that was mentioned earlier with dates and things like that, some of them involve technology that needs to be researched, so that's why there's some distinction with that.

And some of the responses have multiple things that we need to do to address it, so that's why

One may be completed, another one is actively being implemented.

Okay.

Maybe in the next time we come back and talk about this, if you could come ready to talk about issues with the standard disciplinary process.

and ways in which the Council could intervene to improve that process.

We had a private discussion about this, so you'll remember.

Thank you.

I probably am out of time.

I'm not sure.

I have many, many more things here, but I think I'll yield to another member.

Yes, I want to echo what Councilmember Chavez and Stevenson have said, and I appreciate the family and community holding public officials and all of our entities accountable, including coming to inauguration and demanding that apology.

Specifically, a little bit more information on, I did hear the answer that

the four individuals that were not able to be interviewed.

You felt like you got robust enough answers, but where would it have tied in if they would have been able to be interviewed?

And then also in these interviews and the relation to the police federation and the

Chair Payne and committee member, good question.

So I'm gonna start with your second question and that is these were not used with Tennyson and Garrity and that is going to be and has been the Office of City Auditor Standard Practice.

I can provide you some historical context on this and documentation because it was a very

difficult process to work through some of the concerns that the Federation had.

And I will say that audit, our role is not to perform labor relations investigations.

Our role is not to perform criminal investigations.

Our role is to get accurate, transparent, and truthful information into the public's hands.

It is to look for

Policies and procedures and laws that are being violated and to draw attention to those and it is to find internal controls that are lacking.

And so we really had to come into this review with the same mindset and the same methodology that we do with all of our audits.

That said, with the four individuals we were unable to speak to, I do think that, by and large, we got all of the information that we wanted.

I will share that I think that if we had spoken with some of those individuals, it may have crossed into questions about individual

activity, and I can't answer what they would have told us, what information we would have gotten.

So it would be really speculative of me to say that it would have helped or it would have hurt our actual audit.

What I can say is that with a couple of them, I'm just very frustrated that we weren't able to speak with them.

Thank you and thank you for that answer and for your work.

So would the nature of the interviews or investigation

The audit report we try to write to speak for itself, the presentation and the report.

And so that, of course, could be used however it needs to be used, whether that's by the families, by the media, by the council, by the administration.

But ultimately, our service is to point out the findings and the recommendation to improve process within the administration.

That said, we have to separate anything that is individually identifiable for those reasons because this is not a labor relations investigation.

Thank you.

Could you identify the contract bargaining agreement language that limits the lateral hires and that for

at some future date.

Chair Payne, I think that's a good one to add to the follow-up list for MPD.

Okay.

And then in Appendix F, page 16 of the appendixes, it very clearly states,

you know that it can be grounds for discipline if it's not followed but that's so failure to follow policy actually it's on page 18 I'm sorry but I do not see that throughout the rest of the policies that have been updated in our end review and in order to hold my day job where I'm on leave from right now is I represent state employees under the same law that

is why Police Federation has collective bargaining and we have to be clear about the consequences of not following these policies and I'm wondering why it's not throughout.

Chair Payne and committee member, I think that is another great follow-up for MPD.

I agree.

I see it on one and I don't see it on all

Chair Payne and committee member I do not That might be a future follow-up question and Then

Just on Davis-Maturi, do we have any more information on why officers stepped away to talk to, why couldn't one officer stay in contact with Sawchuk on April 8th of 24?

Chair Payne, Councilmember Engle, or Committee Member Englehart, as far as stepping away

The responding officers in that case, they were not aware of the HRO.

They were not aware of the existing warrants when they arrived on scene.

And when they arrived on scene, it was an act of physical altercation.

And so they were securing the scene, ensuring that the two folks that were

Fighting were separated.

At that time, I would suggest, and I am not a police officer, but I would suggest when there's an active fight that the individuals would likely normally be detained until they're identified.

That did not happen in this case.

I don't know why, but

They also, until he retreated back into his home, did not know the history that if he goes into his home, he's never coming out.

And so, I mean, I look at it from two angles.

And one is, could they have done something differently?

Yes.

Did they have any idea what they were coming up against?

No.

So I don't want to second guess the individual officers in that case, but I do think that there was an opportunity and maybe an opportunity to educate on future cases that this is why it is so important to detain while you identify.

about a specific date on the 14th of October with Davis-Maturi, why was that not escalated or forwarded?

It's on the timeline, let's see.

Got it.

Chair Payne and committee member, I do not believe that we have the answer to that question, but I will defer.

Do you know by chance?

Yes, thank you.

Chair, this is Alan Currier from Hogan Adams.

Thank you, Chair, Councilmember.

I will just repeat Mr. Timmerman's statement.

We don't know the reason the individual patrol officer who responded to that case did not escalate it, but our interviews indicated that leadership was not aware of it.

So at the lower level of patrol officers at some point, there was an oversight.

That's why it didn't get escalated.

No further questions.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I think I want to start by expressing sincere gratitude to you, Mr.

Auditor, your team, and the folks at Hogan Adams.

You know, I'll speak to this as a survivor of domestic violence myself, but every aspect of that type of harm is tragic.

and in these cases, or in this case in particular, but really both of these cases, every aspect equally is tragic, right?

To ask for help so many times and not receive it.

And for Mr. Maturi to pay the price of being so

so deeply harmed and experiencing such violence.

honestly being lucky to be alive.

And for Miss Luescher, that she paid the ultimate price with her life.

And I think a part of the tragedy of these experiences is that the suffering happens in silence and it happens without the light of day.

And I want to thank you for helping shed some light

into the truth of what happened that has confirmed really what the families and loved ones and community members of these individuals have told us all along, that they were wronged, that they were harmed, and that it was a failure at a systemic level.

Thank you.

A few questions, and I think I'm going to

I don't have my thoughts organized enough to go through each case separately, so we'll have to go back and forth a couple times here.

But I want to start with the officers that you were not able to speak to.

I want to just confirm a few things.

Okay, excellent, thank you.

I'll first start with the three that are on leave.

Is there anything that you are able to tell us about the form of leave?

I don't believe I can answer that question.

Of course, Chair Payne, members of the Audit Committee, City Council, Joseph Jensen, Assistant City Attorney,

Excellent, so I think it would be really, I would like to know what form of leave, so if there's a way for you to communicate that, I would really like to receive that information.

Thank you.

We'll come back to Auditor Timmerman.

My understanding is the officer that separated from the city was a sergeant who was assigned Ms. Luescher's case.

Okay.

Can you tell me, so again I'll say my understanding is that particular officer who has separated from the city that

They separated from the city approximately one month after the chief's directive to cooperate with the city auditor's office was issued.

Sure, Payne and committee member.

One of the four officers we were unable to speak with, I don't remember in that window that you just described, I don't remember the exact date of when it occurred, but yes, we reached out to an officer who gave us a one-sentence answer that said, I'm not going to participate.

Do you mind if I elaborate just a little bit on why I can't answer questions?

Chair Payne, it's really important to the Office of City Auditor to be as transparent as possible.

That is a virtue of our office to help build trust within the community.

We, like all of us, when we have information that we are unable to share because of the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act,

I would be violating the state law if I shared certain information.

And so, although I would love to share this information, I think that some of it, as you've alluded to, is available in other resources.

Sounds good, thank you.

I think an administrative follow-up for the police department would be to understand for the officer that has since separated, certainly, but refused to meet with or cooperate with the city auditor's office as part of this after action review, whether the police department disciplined that clear

violation of a superior officer's directive.

So I'd just like to know if any disciplinary action was pursued for the officer that refused following the chief's directive.

Okay.

This is really helpful.

Thank you.

This is a conversation we have started in the Audit Committee this week, but I think as part of traditional audits and the way that audits like this are presented to the Audit Committee and then subsequently published, usually they follow that same template that you have outlined here today where you will describe a finding or a risk

and some thought logic and some additional supplementary information as to how you reached that conclusion.

And then you'll include a management response and that's over here too.

Chair Payne and committee member Chughtai.

That's a really good question because I didn't get to that with my last response.

So we do ask for documentation and so like what

MPD provided.

They provided their response and then they provided a number of appendices to evidence their response.

We do the exact same thing when we follow up.

We trust but verify.

That is a audit phrase that is commonly used.

So in that vein,

I think something that really struck me in reading this report is because the nature of both of these cases is different.

The findings and recommendations that you provided in both cases are different, they touch similar themes at times, but one recommendation that came out of both

almost verbatim was the tone at the top and the breakdown of relationship between the Chief of Police here at the City of Minneapolis and the Hennepin County Attorney

That I think is really compelling as the common theme between both of these cases in this after action review.

The management response or the MPD response to that I think is something along the lines of the chief having a willingness or an openness to being in communication with or relationship with the Hennepin County Attorney.

I would imagine that's the kind of thing that

There isn't additional verification for.

But as we were sitting here receiving this information, I reached out to the chief of staff to the county attorney and asked if there are regular meetings or any type of standing regular communication that is happening between the chief and the county attorney.

And the chief of staff's response was, no, that is not happening right now.

A follow-up that I have for the police department, Mr.

Chair and clerks, is I would like the police department to give us some further information as to whether any regular communication, like what is recommended, like weekly emails, monthly phone calls, whether that has been pursued

by the chief and what the plan is to move forward with that type of communication.

These two tragedies happen in part as you have found in this after-action review because of the breakdown of communication between the Hennepin County Attorney's Office and the Minneapolis Police Department from the top and then that trickles down.

What I find unacceptable right now is that

All this time into this process and yet no regular communication happens between these two leaders that is paramount to saving the lives of residents in our city.

And Clerks, please let me know if you want me to make that more concise and send that over to you.

I think my next question is for Hogan Adams actually.

There are, I think very early on in this report on page three there's some mention of some documents from the county that you were unable to

You were able to receive a lot of documentation through MPD.

It looks like we just lost the chair, but I guess we've got the vice chair and committee member Chughtai.

We were ultimately able to see pretty much everything that we wanted to see.

We would have loved to have talked to people at the medical examiner's office, but that was outside our jurisdiction.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Mr. Timmerman, just a few more questions for you.

I apologize.

It struck me, and I can see from the report and the slide deck that it struck you too, that the police department did not request the medical examiner's report until July of 2025 while you were undergoing the after action review.

And you asked for that information and learned from the department that they had yet to ask for this from the medical examiner.

I think that detail really broke my heart in that the ongoing investigation of the death of Allison Luescher was being discussed publicly and yet the police department had failed to request this basic piece of information which confirms that the cause of Ms. Luescher's death was the injury to her head.

Yes, Chair Payne and Committee Member Chughtai, I'm glad you asked that because that level of detail is in the report itself and I think that there's some value in sharing that.

So, our understanding is that on

a DOA case where there is a deceased individual and the police or emergency medical services arrives that when it is believed that it is a natural death, a death caused by drugs,

that MPD may not always need to investigate the case.

In this case, that transitioned into a murder investigation and what we were told is even in cases like this, the investigator may not always get the medical examiner's report, which as baffled as you are, I was.

I think that

There may be no legal requirement for them to do so.

There may be no professional standards requirement for them to do so.

But it's striking that when there was confusion about cause of death, manner of death, unknowns about manner of death, that through the investigation, through the start of what would end up being a lengthy audit,

that it wasn't until nearly two years after her death that MPD themselves had a copy of that.

I'm a layman, right?

So maybe they have an answer for that.

But that being said, it certainly provided the evidence necessary

to corroborate the fact that information that was shared with the media was inaccurate, that information that was shared with the family was inaccurate, and that the classification or description of Ms. Lucher

being a drug addict or dying from a drug overdose was not supported by the Emmys report.

Had we not seen the Emmys report, I would have had a lot more questions coming into this meeting.

So I am glad that certain individuals within the police department fought tooth and nail to get us a copy of that, because as Ms. Hogan said, we do not have insight into county records.

But MPD as the investigating body, as the investigating agency, absolutely has a right to that.

And by way of our city charter, we then do.

Yeah, I think then for administrative follow-up for the police department, I would just like to hear the rationale as to why they did not obtain the medical examiner's report for two years while this case remained open and still does to this day.

I have three questions left for you.

The domestic assault unit is referenced throughout

You can confer with the chief about this.

How many officers are assigned to the domestic assault unit and what's the number of investigators that are assigned there?

I hear the concerns raised around short staffing or not enough resources devoted to this unit, the need for expanding that.

Danielle Oh, that was great.

It was on the other chain and it just randomly switched to this.

And I hope I didn't mess it up.

I just clicked go live on this one.

Melissa, if it helps, I was watching the meeting and now it's that camera.

Oh really?

Yeah.

in a Minnesota correctional facility and his anticipated release date is somewhere around 2030, I believe.

Are you aware, or I would imagine auditors did ask the department about this as it relates to their open investigation, ongoing investigation into the death of Ms. Luescher.

Are you aware if the police department or any investigator in the department has interviewed Mr. Foss to establish something like

In Mr. Maturi's case, this is my last question, I think on page 10 of the report there's reference to

And I think what you're establishing in the findings that you're presenting in the lead up to this is whether a search warrant was needed for officers to enter into Mr. Sawchack's home to arrest him when a warrant was issued for his arrest.

And then I think the report goes on to say that obtaining a search warrant to enter a suspect's home is certainly best practice because it reduces the risk of litigation and allows the police department time to assess the safety risks of entering the suspect's home to execute the warrant.

It is not unlawful, however, to enter a suspect's home to execute an arrest warrant in certain situations.

Chair Payne and committee member, Chughtai, I got a real sense after watching many, many interactions on body-worn camera that the individual officers responding

took great effort to find creative solutions to effectuate an arrest.

I think that the officers also demonstrated that

through my observations that they are likely trained very significantly on infringing upon individuals constitutional rights.

In addition, I think they are trained very heavily on officer and community safety.

And whether I agree or not with their decisions, ultimately an individual officer who makes a decision to go into somebody's house to execute an arrest warrant

without a search warrant or even to follow somebody into their home in hot pursuit, the risk is on that individual officer on whether they've violated somebody's constitutional rights.

And so, I can, to an extent, understand some apprehension there.

I will say that is why the rising concern is

lack of escalation in certain cases.

I do think that everybody within that particular precinct was well aware of what was happening and they were making efforts to monitor that home.

But I think there was more that likely could have been done.

I think legally

There was more that could have been done when it comes to that.

But there's also that fine balance that MPD knew that Mr. Sawcheck was a potential harm to himself or to others.

And that came out when the SWAT team ultimately did effectuate the arrest.

There was a lot of conversation.

through the media and the community that MPD did nothing for five days.

I think that is again not true.

I think that it was not shared widely that MPD was monitoring Mr. Sawcheck's house 24 hours a day and during that time they were doing their standard risk assessment.

I will tell you

The SWAT team has procedures.

The SWAT team has policies.

It is probably one of the areas within this review that I feel very comfortable saying they've got their stuff together.

And so the time that they took I truly believe was necessary to assess that risk.

So I would say that is the level of risk assessment when you know somebody is violent, when you know somebody has mental health concerns, and it is a shut-in.

I think the level of care that they had going into executing that arrest warrant and that search warrant was warranted.

Were there earlier cases where maybe they could have gone in hot pursuit following him?

Yes, probably.

But again, I am not the trained expert in police tactics.

I think that what you're saying makes a lot of sense to me.

I think the reason that those five days felt so offensive to community members was while Mr. Maturi was fighting for his life.

in the hospital, that it took so long for the perpetrator of the injury that he suffered was at home.

I certainly believe that every person and every case of this nature where there's a complex situation and the person is very erratic, has a weapon,

has used that weapon is clearly a threat to themselves and to other people around them that they should be treated with that level of care but it's also undeniable that not every person in our community is offered that exact

Consideration, and that had Mr. Sacheck's race been different, his home would have been entered long, long before.

I think I'll end with thanking Mr. Maturi, Ms. Maturi, and the community that has rallied with them in pursuit of justice for the

the violence that Mr. Maturi and Ms. Maturi were subjected to.

I want to thank the family of Ms. Luescher and the community of folks that continue to work to bring attention to missing and murdered indigenous relatives.

for your incredible work.

Without it, we would not be here today.

Without it, we would not know the truths that we do today.

And these are things that you've known all along and you have been fighting for all along.

It's an incredible thing that these are objective truths now.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

First, both of these are such sad and tragic events in our city, and I am so sorry to these families.

My heart goes out to all of you.

Most of what I am thinking in this moment is simply a reflection and some clarifying questions from having gone through police audits for many years.

What my colleagues know all too well in our day-to-day roles is how often neighbor-to-neighbor and domestic disputes demand enormous amounts of city time.

That includes our council offices and also at times when things get escalated our police department and for years and years I've inherited some

Pernicious situations from my predecessor 13 years ago that still are ongoing today I'm going to work to keep my focus and questions Directly on the audit since that is the unique opportunity For council members not an audit committee here to have today.

We can have more discussion later, but We know quite a lot about mr. Motori because in his

Because of what has happened to him, he's reached outward.

He's reached out to all of us.

He's reached out to others to get his voice and his story heard.

We know quite a bit less about Mr. Sawchuk.

We know that Mr. Sawchuk was a known recluse with severe mental health issues.

I think you mentioned in the beginning of your presentation that he was seen as unfit for trial and civilly committed a long time ago.

I am curious because of the way this presentation opened were there any calls from Mr. Sawchuk in these incidents or was that outside the bounds of

his typical behavior because from what I've read and we've all just gotten this report so I haven't read all of that yet.

Chair Payne, Councilmember Palmisano, I do not recall ever hearing of a call that Mr. Sawcheck made to 911.

I can't say that it's never happened, but I would certainly recall if that were the case.

We have a great deal of training in the police department in the past decade or so, maybe longer, for officers on things like interactions with mentally ill individuals.

When MPD arrives and finds two people in a physical altercation, I think I saw it said Mr. Sawcheck was bloodied and on his own property.

That's not a violation of a restraining order by Mr. Sawcheck.

MPD's rightful first motivation when they arrive is getting these two individuals apart.

My understanding, I was just leafing through here, was that neighbors had called because there were two men fighting in a front yard.

In my own experience of neighbor calls to 911 about mentally ill individuals, in those cases their neighbors, living in community, MPD handles these mentally ill residents very carefully and very cautiously.

And now we have other options like BCR that dispatch can call and ask for support if and when they're not seen as dangerous to themselves, dangerous to other people.

Mr. Sawchuk certainly was.

Just going to acknowledge that he needed a police response.

Chair Payne, Councilmember Palmisano, that's a really good question and I'm gonna let Hogan Adams speak to this to see if it is, it's certainly not a written finding in our report that specifically focuses on that, but I want to also give them an opportunity to share their thoughts on it.

I do know in relation to this case, my understanding is that

The responding officers didn't know Mr. Sawcheck had mental health issues when they arrived.

They didn't know that until after he had retreated back into his home.

And so I believe they were responding to a fight in progress or a, I don't even, I wouldn't even say a neighbor to neighbor fight.

What we read was fight in progress.

and so when they arrived, Mr. Maturi was restraining Mr. Sawchuk.

I think the bloodied on his own property, I mean I've seen or read that as well, but I think that

For this particular case, the responding officers wouldn't have known that Mr. Sawcheck was Mr. Sawcheck and that he had mental health issues.

And I do want to say, I don't think that officers should be in a position to diagnose, obviously.

Thank you.

And again, I'm Alan Currier.

I'm one of the associate attorneys at Hogan Adams, Chair Payne, Councilmember Palmisano.

With respect to your question, as Mr. Timmerman said, there are no written findings or recommendations related to police response to

suspects who have or are suspected to have a mental illness.

I recall from some of our interviews with MPD leadership that while Mr. Sawchack's suspected mental illness was a factor that affected their risk analysis, any of the factors they considered, for example, his history of

violent behavior, including a history of violent behavior against police, the potential that he owned weapons including knives and a firearm, at least one firearm, and his

his habit of retreating into the home, all of those were factors that even individually if the other factors weren't present would have made an arrest operation a high risk operation.

I think part of our reasoning in not directly addressing any recommendations related to arresting or interacting with mentally ill suspects is that Mr. Suchak's mental illness was not the sole factor that created the obstacle to arresting him.

In terms of suggested recommendations,

In the Sawchak Moturi case, I know that there is an embedded social worker in the Fifth Precinct, and I believe there are embedded social workers in all the MPD precincts that are able to work with both victims and suspects.

can make contact with suspects who might have mental illness.

However, that at this point is completely voluntary.

And in this case, I know Mr. Suchak did not want to have any interaction with police and did not want to interact with an embedded social worker either.

That might have made a difference in this case, but that is unlike involuntary civil commitment.

Interactions with the embedded social worker are voluntary and just had no impact on this case because he didn't want to engage.

It does, thank you.

Thank you.

You know, something I see as a parallel here when we look deeply at these cases side by side is about how we can help our officers know more going into a situation, right, and see things accumulate over time more immediately.

The fact that our officers maybe need some clearer consistent direction on different types of warrants and how they play together in certain situations is clear.

I think these findings offer ways for us to improve our police response in future situations that are ongoing like both of these cases.

I kept hearing you, Mr.

Auditor, say these are all being actively implemented.

That's a good thing.

Or a few of them you said were completed.

Some say they're looking at how technology can help us be smarter in threading together calls to gain insight like this.

This is the value we get out of audits like this.

I want some time to dive further into the report of Ms. Luzher and nothing here.

obviously can return her to us, and that's really hard.

So the value is in learning how we do better.

But I cannot help but react to your finding number 17.

It was on slide 80, and it says, officers expressed an interest in hearing feedback from prosecutors regarding potential evidentiary issues that made the case less chargeable in order to better document or gather evidence on future calls.

I think there's opportunity to give officers feedback on cases that don't get charged, but I think it also needs to be made clear our city attorney's office conducts intensive training on domestic response.

It's one and a half days long for new officers or cadets in training.

I've been to it.

I've been to portions of it.

I've been to this training, it's really good.

It talks about everything from how to look for things like strangulation, which is hard to document, to how you write things in a report that make them chargeable better in the future.

How that training transacts into real life situations, in this case life or death situations, gets a lot more complicated.

We also in the past and maybe now have used extensively used community partners as trusted sources of follow-up on domestic calls so it's not an officer following up with a victim after domestic violence but someone from one of our partner organizations.

I will say coordinated response, especially for domestics, requires a very close partnership with the Hennepin County Attorney's Office based on what the city can charge versus the county.

I know our City Attorney's Office is doing the very best they can in terms of trying to prioritize it from all the huge stacks of reports that they have.

I know our MPD is doing the best that they can with the resources they have.

And it looks like they're actively trying to work better with the Hennepin County Attorney's Office to string these things together.

But it really is by examining the gut-wrenching and hard, these very tragic situations that we can make progress.

on things like how we thoroughly investigate things if only to bring greater understanding to loved ones.

But more how we can better coordinate to hopefully prevent incidents like both of these things in the future.

So I do appreciate this work.

Thank you, Chair.

Auditor, thank you for your report and I want to say that my heart truly bleeds for these families and for families who continue to experience

Perpetual violence within our communities whose cries go unanswered and the response is delayed in the urgency of what is happening in our community as a victim and survivor of domestic and sexual violence.

I know exactly what this place feels like.

and it's not a comfortable place.

My heart is saddened and I'm not going to get emotional on this dais, but I do want to talk about the audit and the responses that were made to these families.

I want to start off with the case summary for Mr. Mathuri's case, slide 20.

And it states that they moved into their home September of 2023.

And then on October 11th, Mr. Mathuri made a 911 call to report that this individual

was yelling racial slurs at him and threatened him about a tree.

It said that this individual already was the subject of numerous complaints by other neighbors.

Okay, so there was a home ownership exchange, right?

You stated in your audit that the previous homeowner had a harassment order against this individual and that the new homeowner was reluctant

about obtaining one because the calls went unanswered.

You didn't know that somebody else had bought the house and moved into the house and was a new subject of what was happening.

So this property and this individual should already have been on your radar because he was at a dangerous onset to the community, period.

Okay?

So when we talk about the five-day waiting period for him to be arrested after the offense had occurred, it was more than five days.

We're talking about multiple years of violence that had perpetuated and haunted this community by this individual.

Let's start there.

Now I want to look at slide number 27, finding number two.

And

Slide 29, because they're both on the same page of information that you've shared with us, about this not being assigned to responding officers constantly.

That's showing up there.

It's not being assigned.

It's not being assigned.

It's not being assigned.

It's not being assigned.

And the negligence of what happens in a pre-brief and debrief when officers change shifts.

How does that work?

Because when there's a shift change and there's a pre-briefing and a debriefing of what happened in a previous shift for officers that are on duty, then information should be relayed to individuals about what the climate of the community is at that moment.

and if there's multiple police calls that are coming in to this address not only is it reported as a problem property to the city but it's also reported as a problem property with the police department because they're getting constant calls from that neighborhood from onset of ongoing activity.

So the fact that Maturi neglected to file an HRO because of the negligent history and the failure to respond by MPD even though they knew the previous history of the former owner and having the previous history of harassment orders that had been implemented in that community from said perpetrator

from neighbors and also victimizing this community as a whole, MPD had a fiduciary responsibility to that community to immediately escalate what was happening and neglected to do so.

So that disheartens me.

That makes me extremely sad because this is not foreign behavior.

This should not have ever gotten to this point in ever.

There's not a reason that you could tell me that it should have ever gotten to this point just based on the history.

We got to look at the historical context.

Mr. Maturi was a new resident in this space, but the history continued to perpetuate in that same area for an overextended amount of time.

That angers me and I just want to point that out.

So whatever needs to be done to remedy the historical and include the historical context when you're looking at situations involving victims or victimized neighborhoods or neighbors or community members when they're telling you

constantly over and over again there's a problem.

We look at the execution of arrest warrants.

You were talking about you didn't want to violate its Fourth Amendment rights or whatever the situation was.

It says the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution prohibits law enforcement officers from engaging in unreasonable search and seizure and states that no warrants

shall issue but upon probable cause supported by oath or affirmation.

You had plenty of affirmations from individuals throughout the community that said that probable cause was in place for a warrant to be issued for you to go up in there because you not only provided a disservice to Mr. Maturi, but you also provided a disservice to the perpetrator who was in mental health crisis, clearly.

And there was a history of him being civically committed or having whatever, couldn't stand trial in previous cases or whatever.

So the history was there.

It was already a known fact.

And I think because he was a Caucasian male, it wasn't made an area of priority.

And that is what has me, Fannie Lou Hamer, tired of it being a drawn line of separatism of where value is placed when you look at predetermined factors of who's making the complaint.

So that hurts me to my core.

At the same time that this situation was going on, there were numbers of other issues and complaints that were coming through around that same geographical area about individuals who were in mental health crisis that are terrorizing the neighborhood and nobody does anything about it because they're white males.

Because they're white males.

And that needs to stop.

I don't know what ordinance or law needs to be written into, whatever, but somebody need to get somebody's cousins under control.

Next I want to pay attention to finding slide five, slide 57, finding five, slide 57, and finding

Seven still in the case of our beloved sister, Ms. Allison.

I think it's great that we have these domestic violence navigators working with our police department.

But my question becomes is how bad does domestic violence have to get for it to be taken seriously?

Because

In fear, if you've ever been a victim of domestic or sexual violence, there is a fear that riddles through your body, through your soul into your core.

that makes it difficult for you to tell your truth because in so many ways you blame yourself for the outs that you didn't take.

So it disheartens me to hear

and to see in the findings of these slides that when victims stopped responding or participating in investigations that you're saying that it is difficult to move forward with that investigative process.

Here it is, our beloved sister had multiple calls to the police department and her family also pleaded on her behalf just the same.

With that being said, there was full cooperation of people who were reaching out for the safety, health, and welfare for her that could have allowed, again, the probable cause existed there because there were the community complaints.

This 72 hour period of time does not institute the police going on a manhunt for these individuals, I know.

because I was assaulted and re-assaulted within that 72 hour period, okay?

And nobody was out running around searching and looking for them, okay?

They were not looking on a manhunt.

They wasn't going to their mama's house, their cousin's house, where they hang out at, and all of these other things in order to get this violent perpetrator off the street.

And now this individual is in jail now for a crime that he committed

towards somebody else because during that 72 hour period of time nobody was looking for this individual so he had the freedom and the liberty to go out there and perpetuate violence on somebody else.

Shame.

Shame.

That pains my core.

Shame.

I am upset because I know what it's like to be on the other end of that 72 hours.

I don't know what it's going to take for people to get this stuff right and what.

The training, the whatever the case is, but all of this information is, and I thank you for your audit, but it's disgusting.

Because what it does is it tells on the negligence.

It tells on what fell between the cracks and that there is a lot of work that needs to be done.

It's a lot of work that needs to be done.

I'm not saying that it's going to be fixed overnight, but it saddens me and it hurts me to my core to know that we continue to lose victims, we continue to fail our neighbors in this capacity, and that cries for help

fall on deaf ears, especially when it comes from individuals in black and brown communities.

And I just really want better.

I really want our police department to do better.

I just do.

I really want there to be a better working relationship between our chief and the county attorney.

I don't know if it's Mary or whomever it may be, you know, because I know there's going to be a change of arms, but I'm talking about that relationship needs to be tight as a frog's bottom.

For everything that comes from our investigators who investigate crimes, who are looking into information of things that happen without our community, they need to be communicating and pushing for the charge of these crimes.

They need to be pushing for the warrants with these things because sometimes the victims can't speak.

And just because my voice is silent doesn't mean that I am invaluable.

Just because I've been silenced out of fear or out of death does not make me invaluable.

It doesn't.

So you gotta do better.

You have to do better.

I'm speaking to my chief here, and Mary Moriarty know that I've already checked her.

She knows that.

So I really want better for our community and I really, really, really, really, truly want the relationships that we are fighting so hard to ensure that they exist within our departments, across departmentally, to exist and be stronger.

Whatever that needs to happen.

Because that's the only way we're going to be able to effectively heal.

from situations like this.

Thank you.

I have Councilmember Whiting in queue.

Councilmember Stevenson, do you have a hard stop that you need to, should we get to Whiting first and do you have time?

Well, I don't know, maybe Councilmember Whiting needs to go as well.

I'm just in queue for Committee Member Williams.

Okay, thank you.

I've got to get to agenda setting soon, so I've got to leave.

Just a couple of things.

I'll be really fast.

One, we're talking about DOA.

There was just something talking about DOA and you were mentioning overdose deaths and that that wouldn't be looked into necessarily as a homicide.

You have no control over this, but I just want to flag that looking into overdose deaths with urgency would be extremely valuable for our city and our community.

I think those should warrant some kind of investigation whether we're arresting the people who sold them the drugs or the network that got the drugs into their hands.

Secondly, you mentioned the contract issue of

Civil servants not being able to be hired at the sergeant level.

I just want to flag for everyone here that the next time we have a contract negotiation, this is something we gotta fix.

We gotta be hiring more people in.

And you can go into the military, you have a master's degree, you have a different degree, you go into the military and you go into the officer level.

So yeah, this is something we gotta fix.

Next, I was hoping to hear from the Chief.

What mechanism are you using?

Welcome.

Good afternoon.

Todd Barnett, Commissioner of Community Safety.

Through the Chair, Councilmember Stevenson, this is something that Chief O'Hara and I have been talking about over the last couple of days.

It's going to be incumbent upon me

to reach out to the County Attorney, Mary Moriarty.

I have a relationship, a professional relationship with her prior to coming here that I think can be helpful in mending this professional relationship where communication can happen more frequently.

Okay, that sounds great.

I'll put in my two cents.

I think a monthly meeting would be great.

I have monthly meetings with people who I disagree with.

It's just important to do.

Next, I wanted to ask, maybe this is a legal question, I'm not sure.

There has been a lot of talk both on this body and in the community that the reason that officers were not able to arrest Mr. Sawchuk much, much earlier is that because of the banning of no-knock warrants, they were not allowed to go get him in his home.

I just want to clarify, does anyone

Chair Payne and Councilmember Stevenson, I don't know that there was any discussion related to no-knock warrants in this case so I would have to defer to MPD on whether or not that was in consideration.

That did not come up to my knowledge in our conversations.

We did have conversations generally about no-knock warrants and no-knock warrants

are very clearly restricted, regulated, and that is certainly something that is commonly understood across the MPD.

As far as the last part of your question, I mean, I really think it came down to individual officers

have to make a decision.

And I get a sense that the training is you're not going to go in there and potentially violate their Fourth Amendment rights.

And I mean, that is, again, that is just factual that I'm sharing with you.

And it's not my opinion on whether that's right or wrong.

But that is the observation that we made is that officers seem to rely heavily on

Yeah, thank you.

I'm happy that officers are thinking about people's Fourth Amendment rights.

To me, it just seems logical that somebody higher up or they would have instituted some kind of process in order to alleviate Fourth Amendment concerns but also arrest him.

It's my understanding, the reason I brought this up is because it's my understanding that there are many ways

in order

We need people apprehended before they shoot our neighbors.

And then I have one more question and then two comments.

The first, when it came to finding 12 in Allison Luescher's case, I don't have that in front of me, but

I was curious, it talks about a lack of investigative capacity in MPD.

Is this an area where civilian investigators could fill that gap?

Councilmember Stevenson, that is my understanding is it's the same issue that we've discussed already as far as coming into sergeant, lieutenant type of levels.

Most investigators are sergeants and there are lieutenant level investigators as well.

Okay, is there state law that prevents a civilian investigator from having that kind of role?

not to my knowledge but I don't know.

For those who are familiar with Tekle Sundberg's case, comments that were made here would be very frustrating.

I hear you.

And also just a suggestion, a lot of these findings talk about better documentation.

I have some experience from the medical field where documentation is both a very important thing and also a barrier to seeing more patients so I completely empathize that officers have many things to do and documentation can be

could theoretically bog them down.

What if we had CSOs act as scribes for officers?

That seems, I don't know if they could get, you know, credits in their degree for doing that.

Scribes in the medical field sometimes get that sort of thing, but that seems like an excellent way of alleviating documentation concerns while getting really good documents.

And that's all from me, and thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you, Chair Payne.

Mr. Timmerman, I will make this brief.

I know you've been here for a while, but I just want to get some clarification from an audit lens, just understanding both how we came to some of the recommendations and then the next steps.

Throughout both of the cases and the recommendation, it talked about things like updating procedures, a lot of references of training, documentation, as we just mentioned.

Is that addressing a compliance issue by the officer, meaning there's something there that's not being followed?

Is that addressing a comprehension issue, meaning that they may or may not understand it?

Chair Payne, Committee Member Williams, that's a good question.

I think it's all of them.

I think that there are instances in these findings where the officers responding could benefit from a refresh on the training and on what the procedures are.

One example that comes to mind is how officers work with victims.

especially victims of domestic violence.

I think officers are heavily trained on personal safety, officer safety, and get significantly less training on how to talk to people, how to work with victims.

I know that Council Member Palmisano talked to this that early on in training there's extensive training on this.

I don't think there's a lot of tabletop exercises, if any, that further that through an officer's career.

And so when it comes to some of the recommendations, it's certainly training related.

It certainly could be compliance related.

And then as we think about, I know we've talked about the dates to follow up.

going forward, is this part of your office's continuous review process?

So, yes, we'll look when we have some of these dates at the end of the year, two years, three years.

Chair and committee member, yes, I might not be understanding your question fully, but they are going to go on to our standard list of findings and recommendations that we track, monitor, and follow up on.

And so we will regularly be providing the audit committee with updates on these.

And then my final question, and this might be just a nomenclature situation.

We typically, when we talk in our audit committee, you have a finding and then there's an understanding that what you are then telling the office needs to be done or they're going to take responsibility for not doing that and any consequences that are associated with that.

Chair and committee member, that is a very good question and it gets into the weeds of what audit is and what audit does.

Recommendations are called recommendations because typically that's the extent of the leverage that audit has.

The City Council and the Audit Committee and the Office of City Auditor communicate them as expectations.

I think it is ingrained within the culture within the City of Minneapolis that audit recommendations are expectations.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

First, I think I'll note an administrative follow-up here from the Office of Community Safety and the Police Department.

You know, I just went back and double-checked, and I remember in early March, March 4th, the Police Department came before the Committee of the Whole to present on the effects of Operation Metro Surge in that conversation, or in the discussion that day.

It was

brought up by me asking questions of the Chief around engagement with the Hennepin County Attorney's Office and back in early March the Chief mentioned that he would be meeting with the Commissioner and they would be proactively engaging with the County Attorney's Office.

So it just concerns me that we are here now nearly two months later and that is still something that is being planned

for some unknown date in the future.

I find that to be quite unacceptable.

So if in the administrative follow-up the police department and the Office of Community Safety can address what their concrete plans are,

for engaging with the county attorney's office and for the chief to be meeting regularly with the county attorney as was outlined in this after action review for both cases as a paramount need to ensure the safety and well-being of our residents.

and to prevent deaths as tragic as Allison Luscher's, that it is paramount that the chief of police and the county attorney have regular communication.

So please outline exactly what your plans are to engage with the county attorney and please for the love of God let's not sit here two months later with

Future plans still being considered as to how to reach out to the county attorney who over and over again publicly states to this body and to the media that that she continues to try to reach out and meet with the chief on a regular basis to uh to knowville so

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Earlier, you were responding to a question about the medical examiner's report, and I think you said something along the lines of expressing gratitude for members in the Minneapolis Police Department who, I think you used the term, fought tooth and nail to ensure that a part of the after action review included an examination of the medical examiner's report.

Can you please elaborate on that?

Chair and committee member, thank you for asking for that clarifying question.

When I say tooth and nail, sometimes it's very difficult for us to get documents or information.

And again, we did not have direct purview into the Hennepin County medical examiner's records.

We sought to get a copy ourselves.

They cited

Minnesota Government Data Practices Act.

We said, yep, we figured.

And we followed up with the administration of the police department and

Assistant Chief Blackwell assigned out to an individual to work with the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office and through a circle, I think, worked also with the Hennepin County Attorney's Office, but we were bothering him daily.

And so when I say tooth and nail, it's more that we were putting a lot of pressure on him to get it and when he got it, it was like,

I got it.

I'm excited.

No, no.

It's so helpful to know.

I thought, yeah, just wasn't sure what the context was there.

Thank you, Mr.

Councilmember Whiting.

Thank you, Chair Payne.

Just kind of a few quick questions for you, Mr. Timmerman.

I think specifically as we talk about the relationship between MPD and internally here with both the chief and internally at the city kind of apparatus, their relationship with the Hennepin County Attorney's Office generally

Chair Payne and Councilmember Whiting, I want to first say something I haven't but I believe is in the report and that is

At the officer and investigator level and at the assistant attorney level and staff attorney level, it was shared by both the chief and the county attorney that communication is fantastic, relationships work well.

We heard that from investigators, we heard that from

from a lot of people that we spoke with.

So I think it's important to not categorize a breakdown in relationship across the two offices.

That said, a breakdown, and when you think about internal controls from a true audit perspective, tone at the top is paramount.

It's the top.

and when there is lack of communication, collaboration, and even reports in the media of we don't talk to each other and we don't like each other.

It's beyond a normal professional working relationship.

I think Councilmember Chughtai said something that I've tried to say and that I will just reiterate is that the County Attorney's Office has tried reaching out.

I mean that was made very clear to us on a number of occasions.

I don't know

other than in our interviews that there has been a breakdown in communication as to what caused that.

I can't speculate.

I think those may be even private feelings between those two individuals.

But I think that from an audit perspective,

I am pleased that they both have demonstrated a willingness to get over it.

Thank you, Mr. Timmerman.

I think it's helpful to understand, right, it seems like it is a breakdown both from kind of within the MPD and then also at the Hennepin County Attorney's Office as well.

And so I think somebody, I think all of us probably sitting here on the committee would love to see that relationship be repaired and if there are things that we can do to help establish and continue that relationship, please.

Let us know, particularly I guess as it relates to kind of a second question here, really kind of from the case summary and the timeline.

I think I'm having, and I will grab, just particularly in the case of Davis-Menturi,

the kind of for was that April 5th 2024 when Hennepin County Attorney denied the felony charges up with the upwards of I think 11 plus calls to 911 on kind of the it was

Was that, in your findings, Mr. Timmerman, was that an evidentiary standard?

Was that a lack within a police report?

Like, where are we kind of seeing those misses?

Yeah, Chair and Councilmember, I think that's a pretty good speculation.

We don't have a lot of information to share on that, typically.

Those decisions are not public information.

And so I don't know off the top of my head, but what I do know is that it's not public for me to share those decisions that are made on not charging.

Helpful.

In your time both here in the city of Minneapolis and elsewhere, when you see the Hennepin County Attorney's Office's larger prosecutors and county attorneys broadly in other jurisdictions, did those decisions, charging decisions, impact MPD's ability or other jurisdictions' ability to bring forward, or I guess willingness and want to bring forward other charges in similar situations with the same

Chair Payne, Councilmember, I think I understand your question and it's getting at kind of a cultural breakdown and we get into that into the report but we did see instances where cases were not charged because of this mindset that

It's not going to be charged.

And what I feel good about in that situation is I've heard both from the chief and from the county attorney that strongly said, they need to file them.

I mean, if there's a crime, you file the charges.

And so that is where that trickle down of perception really affects an organization.

Great, thank you.

You got exactly where I was going there and so that's I think helpful as we kind of try to understand the larger ecosystem that exists both between here within MPD and also in the Hennepin County Attorney's Office.

And to your point, I think, again, I think it is helpful as we see those relationships start to come together a bit to kind of continue and change culture, not just at the top, but as it moves throughout MPD and Hennepin County Attorney's Office.

Last question here, again kind of as it relates I know you note within the findings particularly about the staffing levels and how staffing in both cases has allowed for a level

of maybe sort of kind of falling off the kind of burner, moving to the back burner sort of things.

When you speak to staffing levels, is it usually particular to investigators, patrol officers?

Sure, Chair and Councilmember, we heard it from everyone.

I mean, it permeates the entire department.

I know that the department has worked very, very hard to get numbers up, but as we've talked about and as Councilmember Stevenson kind of dug into, is that everyone starts at the officer level.

And so it can take four or five more years for folks to advance into investigatory levels, specialization within investigations, whether that's sex crimes, whether that's homicide, or any of the multitude of other units.

And so I think that there was only one division unit that

Okay, thank you.

That was my last question and I would just note I think there is a consensus probably a unanimous consensus among this body that there has been a deep failure both in our kind of criminal justice system across multiple bodies and I think it is our job as council members as committee members to ensure that we continue to kind of bring

to light the issues and the kind of systemic issues that we see both here in this report and encouraged by our public safety leaders, both in Hennepin County Attorney's Office and here with MPD acknowledging those failures and wanting to move forward in a way that makes sure that we don't have continued failures and loss of life due to that.

Thank you Chair Payne.

More of a wrap-up comment maybe.

You don't have to wrap up.

People can keep going.

But I know we've all been here for a long time and thank you to everyone that's here in this public forum for this.

I want to just acknowledge that

Audit is a path.

It's not the only path.

And there are so many other pieces that need to continue moving forward.

And I want to thank Mr. Timmerman.

You've been the focus of most of this commentary from this joint session.

And I want to just appreciate that you aren't the doer for a lot of these next steps.

So thank you for being the recipient of all of this today.

And I would say, just as council

Joining us today in this joint session if there are Additional follow-ups on these reports that are happening at council.

That's one thing that I think I Personally on the Audit Committee want to be a part of and see how we can support

on Audit Committee as well.

And I think one thing that I've been so kind of holding onto from Monday's Audit Committee meeting is the fact that there's going to be this amazing new process for tracking stakeholders and really demanding true follow-up from the owners of these.

So Mr. Timmerman, you've noted that audit has a certain set of responsibilities.

And this report is a lot of that.

You also are taking on that enterprise risk management that the city does not have right now.

And I want to thank you for doing that because that is above and beyond the scope of the charter.

And I am grateful that we have this charter and this audit committee to do that.

But without that higher level enterprise risk management, that's where these things would go.

We talked about escalation.

We talk about what happens next.

We don't have that yet so that's just want to keep that for this full body at top and I would say as I know there are a lot of things that are being sent to staff I think we can look in June and other meetings for the Audit Committee

of what really the recommendations mean.

There wasn't time to dig into each of those today.

But I'm really grateful for the airing of all this and the public's attendance and almost four hours in still being here.

This is really important.

And I look forward to the committee and council finding the right places for these within the city.

I'm so sorry, Mr.

Chair, Mr. President.

One more administrative follow-up for the clerks.

Given the cause of death identified in the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Report of the death of Ms. Allison Luescher, is the investigation that is still ongoing within the police department

being investigated as a homicide.

That's all.

Thank you.

And seeing no one else left in the queue, again, I want to thank Mr. Timmerman for leading this really challenging work.

And again, you took this on on your literal first day on the job.

And I want to thank all of the family members and advocates who

brought us here.