♪ ♪ (distant sirens) YOHURU WILLIAMS: Five years after George Floyd's murder, and the violent unrest that followed... ...the Minneapolis Police Department's third precinct sat burned... encircled by razor wire.

A troubling monument to the volatile tensions between American police and the communities they're supposed to serve.

I'm Dr.

Yohuru Williams, a historian, author and educator with an interest in diverse history, people's movements and an understanding of how the past impacts the present.

(protestor chanting) PROTESTORS: No peace!

No justice, no peace!

WILLIAMS: When George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police, like much of the world, I wondered, why Minnesota?

How did this and other deadly police encounters happen here in a land of liberal ideals?

And progressive political legacies of Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale?

This building is one of the places to look for answers, not just in its destruction, but in its construction, four decades ago.

The city celebrated the opening of this precinct in 1985, highlighting how it was designed to be more welcoming, to be a police precinct for the people.

But over the years, it became a home to some of the most notorious cops in the department.

Officers with multiple complaints of brutality, including Derek Chauvin.

In the years following the events of 2020, the building sat, its future unclear.

This inability to resolve the future of the third precinct reminds me of how Minneapolis has struggled to reform its police department.

Of mayors who offered both liberalism and law and order, but ultimately were unable to effect lasting change.

Of police chiefs and officers trying to change a culture the U.S.

Department of Justice determined to be... dangerous.

And of resilient Black, Brown, and Indigenous leadership who championed self-reliance, resistance and reform.

That has always been met with growing resistance by a police union that pushed its way into politics.

So, to move toward a better future of public safety... ...we have to look to the past.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Hey!

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♪ ♪ ♪ WILLIAMS: Maya Angelou once observed that history, despite its pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, it need not be repeated.

MICHAEL LANSING: Defining factor of some of these reports... WILLIAMS (voiceover): With this in mind, I launched into a deep research project to uncover what happened to the Minneapolis Police Department, the MPD, and its fraught relationship with the community.

Why is historical recovery important?

There's a difference between history and memory.

Memory is what people, individually or as communities, choose to remember about the past.

History is about evidence-based interpretations of the past.

WILLIAMS: Our work of historical recovery begins at Hennepin County's Central Library in downtown Minneapolis.

The keepers of some of the city's founding documents, including the city charter.

LANSING: In Minneapolis, the city charter is set up so that the only thing the mayor really is in charge of is public safety.

So the mayor is the head of the police department.

MICHELLE PHELPS: The best way to think about the charter is that it's the city's constitution.

So it outlines what are the major rules and responsibilities of the various bodies of city government.

The very first sentence about the police department in the city charter says the mayor has complete power over the establishment, maintenance and command of the police department.

WILLIAMS: Amending the city charter will be one of the ways citizens and politicians will seek police reform in the years ahead.

But one of the first efforts at reform speaks to how relatively new American policing still was in the late 19th century.

In 1876, for Mayor Albert "Doc" Ames, reform was in the clothing cops wore.

He thought they should dress the part.

LANSING: Mayor Ames very clearly establishes what he thinks the rules should be, and those include, police officers should not own other businesses in the city.

Those include, police officers must wear uniforms at all times.

You have to be visible to citizens on the street in this very particular way, so that everybody knows who you are.

WILLIAMS: But Mayor Ames was hardly a well-intentioned reformer, as reported by muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens, when he added Minneapolis to his list of cities called out in his landmark reporting and book, "The Shame of the Cities."

LINCOLN STEFFEN (dramatized): "He set out upon a career "of corruption, which, for deliberateness, invention "and avarice has never been equaled.

"Immediately upon his election, before he took office, "he laid plans to turn the city over to outlaws "who were to work under police direction for the profit of his administration."

LANSING: We see this national story about Minneapolis and corruption and "Dirty Doc Ames" as mayor.

STEFFEN (dramatized): "More and more thieves and swindlers "came hurrying to Minneapolis.

"Some of them saw the police and made terms.

"Some of them were seen by the police "and invited to go to work.

There was room for all."

LANSING: The entire police department is bound up in these webs of corruption, when in fact it's a public agency that taxpayers are paying for to create public safety.

So that kind of politicization of policing and this question of reforming leads to a situation in the early 20th century where we have to deal with police departments, we have to get rid of this corruption.

We have to professionalize.

And so, you see, reform in the early 20th century focused on this shift, professionalizing and breaking the bond between policing and city politics.

But it proves to be much harder than anyone ever imagined.

WILLIAMS: So, Michael, there's a long history of reform, but there's also a long history of the racialization of the police.

Tell me about that.

Yeah, if we think about racialized policing here in Minneapolis, one of the stories that comes to mind right away in terms of this long, very deep history, very difficult history, is the story about Ophelia Rice in 1899.

WILLIAMS: 1899, absolutely.

That takes place in October.

There is a police officer named Thomas Britt who's on patrol at Lyndale and Lake, and he observes two Black girls whom he later says were strangers to him.

And so he stops them and asks where they're going.

Mrs.

Rice steps out and she says to Britt, "What are you doing to my daughter?"

And Britt responds to her, "Go in the house, mind your business."

And of course, that's not what happens, because in fact, it's an escalation.

And Officer Britt then turns his attention to Ophelia Rice, and he ends up choking her and physically harming her in other, quite severe ways.

WILLIAMS: Ophelia Rice was a true Minnesota pioneer.

She is said to have arrived in the state through the Underground Railroad, and like other trailblazing Black women of her era, she defied racial barriers to break new ground.

LANSING: She's deeply involved in community affairs.

The fact that this will be heard in court at all is important to the broader population of the city.

WILLIAMS: Certainly resonates with the Black community at that time-- in fact, the previous June, there had been an article that had been published making the case that there was only one Black officer on the force at the time, with a resident population of Black people of 3,000.

And you have residents demanding that there be the addition of more officers of color, more Black officers.

Ophelia's case is an early example of Black women defending their children against police abuses.

It drew significant media attention.

But I have to wonder, how many similar cases went unnoticed and unreported?

And like so many high profile incidents, did Ophelia's case spark interest not just because of who the victims were, but because the abuse was all too common?

Such an important find here is... LANSING: Oh, yeah.

WILLIAMS: ...Ophelia Rice's Home.

LANSING: Yeah.

In the city directory.

And to come to the space as a reminder, both of the sites of trauma within the city and this history that still needs to be recovered.

♪ ♪ WILLIAMS: Downtown Minneapolis's bustling North Loop neighborhood has a trendy sheen that belies a violent history.

In 1934, these streets were stained with blood during the infamous 1934 trucker's strike.

NEWS REPORTER (archival): In Minneapolis, a truck driver's strike was climaxed by severe riots and fights between the strikers and the police.

WILLIAMS: That witnessed one of the most alarming instances of deadly force used by the government or police in the state's history.

It's a moment that underscores the paradox of a police union, an entity that would become a bruising political force in the city in the early 21st century, but that began as a real attempt to give police worker's rights and protections in the early 20th century.

Minneapolis Mayor Thomas Van Lear is one of a small number of socialists to become mayor of a large American city when he was elected in 1916.

As he took the reins in city hall, like the mayors before and since, he quickly set to reforming the Minneapolis Police Department, including upping pay to lessen the temptation for graft.

He also appointed a fellow labor organizer and union member as chief.

LANSING: What you see is police officers themselves starting to think about like, maybe we should have a union too.

They emerge in the early 1920s as a pretty important force.

They're not engaged in collective bargaining, but they do represent the needs of police officers as city employees.

And they are actually even starting to participate in the local labor movement at the head of Labor Day parades here in the city of Minneapolis in the mid-1920s.

WILLIAMS: But Minneapolis was not a union town and a circle of local business leaders, the Citizens Alliance, initially tolerated but eventually went after the Federation, just like it did any other union in the city.

LANSING: The Citizens Alliance actually forced the police officers in 1927 to renounce their notions of a union.

The Police Officers Federation remains, but it's essentially an association rather than a labor organization.

WILLIAMS: This led to the pivotal moment in 1934.

LANSING: It's a moment of intense public disorder in what is already a really unsettling time.

So hundreds and hundreds of people are in the streets in the North Loop: strikers, protesters, as well as police officers.

But those police officers are joined by these special deputies.

These are recently-deputized citizens, mostly representing business interests.

Some of them are even small business owners.

And they are there alongside the cops to have a show of force, a law and order show of force in the streets to ensure that this strike gets taken care of.

REPORTER (archival): In Minneapolis, a truck driver's strike was climaxed by severe riots and fights between the strikers and the police, with many casualties.

WILLIAMS: Strikers arriving in trucks were drawn into what some researchers have described as an ambush.

Minneapolis police opened fire.

Several strikers were killed by police gunfire and dozens were injured.

It's often said, "Wounds produce narratives."

What is the narrative for the police coming out of 1934?

What are the lessons learned?

They have to line up.

They have to make sure that they are doing the work that the mayor and anyone who's bringing pressure on the mayor wants them to do.

WILLIAMS: Early 20th century police made attempts to evolve and innovate.

The hiring of a few Black officers was an early response to calls for more diversity among police departments that still echoes today.

And bringing women into the MPD was an effort to provide public safety and support for women encountering police on either side of the law.

Black pioneer Ethel Ray Nance was among these early officers, referred to as police matrons.

But race, gender and police have a fraught history in America, with interracial relationships being a beat aggressively patrolled by the Minneapolis police in this era.

This dynamic of white women, Black men and police remains a dangerous triangle today, but it was even more perilous in the early 20th century.

Rising to the defense of Black people, along with civil rights organizations, was the local Black press with a steady drumbeat of reporting on police harassment and brutality.

You would see Black press papers really trying to dive into the issue of holding police officers accountable for their actions, getting witness testimony of what their accounts of the interaction was, and making sure it wasn't really one-sided, but making sure that public safety was at the forefront of their reporting.

Cecil Newman was an early publisher for the Black press within the Twin Cities.

WILLIAMS: Newman's papers center Black leaders, like lawyer Lena Smith, and their efforts to challenge police brutality, including a series of stories where Smith successfully had two abusive cops reassigned out of a Black community.

But the moderate Newman also prioritized and cultivated white allies and... ...subscribers.

GAITHER: He was a really close friend with a lot of politicians, notably Hubert Humphrey.

WILLIAMS: Newman and Hubert Humphrey would become lifelong friends and allies.

When Humphrey became mayor of Minneapolis in 1945, many wondered, could this new era of Black and civic leadership finally bring real reform to the Minneapolis police?

LANSING: When Newman articulates the needs and wants and desires of Black folks in Minneapolis, Humphrey is listening to him and taking him seriously.

And that's relatively new.

That's not something that had happened in Minneapolis before, that kind of access to power.

WILLIAMS: Hubert Humphrey was proud of what he called a new era in law enforcement.

The colorblind cop training, the anti-corruption efforts, increased pay and embracing the police union were part of Humphrey's liberal law and order reforms.

IRIC NATHANSON: Humphrey made his mark.

Now he only stayed for three years as mayor before he then goes off to Washington, and the Senate.

WILLIAMS: So once again, a new mayor would have to establish his leadership of the police department.

In June of 1949, interim appointee Mayor Eric Hoyer ran to continue Humphrey's successful liberal law and order platform.

But shortly before the election, he fired the police chief for supporting his opponent, saying the chief had, "Entered politics "when the police department should be kept out of politics."

When Hoyer made assurances with the Police Officers Federation, they lined up on his side against the dismissed chief.

The union's leader, William Joyce, offered a curious critique of a police chief meddling in city politics.

WILLIAM JOYCE (dramatized): "An attempt to influence "government or the outcome of elections "have the makings of a police state, a dangerous thing."

WILLIAMS: But the union support of Mayor Hoyer did bolster their political power, and through the 1950s and beyond, further reform of the MPD would move further out of reach, and racialized policing would start to include Native Americans whose population in Minneapolis was growing.

Historian Katrina Phillips of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, stresses the importance of understanding what brought Native people to the cities in large numbers and what they experienced when they got here, including racialized policing.

Minnesota has always been a Native place, but in this moment, right in the mid-20th century, that's when you have an influx of Native folks from reservations because of what's known as relocation policy.

The jobs that they are promised... don't exist.

They face a lot of discrimination when it comes to employment, the housing that they are promised, if they're even able to access it, is subpar... and they become much more visible.

In some instances, they become hyper visible.

And so with that added visibility, they become a target, for, in this instance, for the police.

WILLIAMS: The West is often framed in terms of this problematic notion of frontier.

And yet when we think about this in terms of policing in particular, and the way that you talked about how Indigenous folks, Black folks are dealing with being over policed and unprotected, their bodies and communities become an extension of this notion of frontier.

I hate to say that it's a great way to frame it, because... ...when we think of the frontier, it's always painted as this lawless place that requires justice.

That requires policing.

When you have the military that goes out and starts chasing Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce, they're not just going after Sitting Bull.

They're going after his followers.

And so, that policing never stops.

But it shifts from the cavalry at the Battle of the Little Bighorn to police officers.

There is such a long and deep history of the policing and surveillance of Native bodies.

And Black bodies, that... what we see happen in the 1960s, what we see happen in 2020 is, unfortunately, not unique.

It is simply the manifestation of it in a different form.

WILLIAMS: According to human service research and news reporting from the late 1950s, Native Americans were overrepresented in the workhouse, meaning police encounters were all too frequent.

But across downtown from Skid Row, there was the Elliot Park House, where social worker and Red Lake Band member Daniel Hardy worked in support of the growing urban Indigenous populations.

And women's groups like the Broken Arrow Group and the White Earth-based Sunshine Group retained cultural and communal traditions in the city.

This cultural work, often led by women, would be the basis for Native self-help, cultural survival, resistance, police abuses and self-defense in the decades to come.

By the early 1960s, the city charter would once again be the focus for police reform.

Michael's research reveals how the Police Federation successfully campaigned against an amendment that would have strengthened the mayor's role.

Police encouraged support for friendly aldermen, and a front page newspaper photo of anti-amendment lawn signs being stored at police headquarters stirred controversy of ramped-up police politicking.

The union also successfully lobbied for a charter amendment in their favor.

This one would lock in the ratio of sworn police officers to the city's population, ensuring there be two cops for every 1,000 residents.

Again, editorials decried the rising policy influence of police officers and their union-- but the police federation's campaigning proved successful.

The charter was changed by voters in 1961.

The MPD and their union showed their political power as the new decade began.

(people clamoring) From gripping scenes of police accosting nonviolent demonstrators on the streets of Birmingham, to the March on Washington, 1963, with its tension between struggle and progress, might be the most dramatic year in the modern civil rights era.

But '63 was also the year when a Black family settled in Minneapolis, who would eventually change the sound of Minnesota with the emergence of the Grammy-winning Sounds of Blackness.

♪ Never say die, keep, keep on ♪ Gary Hines, the heart and soul of the Sounds of Blackness, grew up with a potent blend of Black power and Black music.

Bless you.

Why Minneapolis?

Because I think there will be some people who legitimately don't understand the history of the city.

Minneapolis was a jazz Mecca.

A lot of times the media treats Prince, and, like, Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis as an aberration, like, they just appeared.

It's like, no, all of their parents were a part of a very small, but a very, extremely vibrant and culturally active and astute Black community, especially in terms of music.

We emanated from that tradition, but, right under the veneer of Minnesota nice, which was a real thing, but right underneath that, was the stench of racism, okay?

Uh, police brutality.

MAHMOUD EL-KATI: Communalism is very strong among all African people.

That is, they tend to develop sharing societies wherever they are.

WILLIAMS: A few years removed from the March on Washington, the civil rights movement was losing some of its luster, and the Black Power movement was on the rise.

Inspired and informed by leaders like cultural icon and elder Mahmoud El-Kati.

Well, I didn't know of any other community in America in which people referred to one another as brother and sister.

WILLIAMS: Community centers have always been a place to focus power.

In the 1960s, there was the Phillis Wheatley Community Center and a few other settlement houses.

And then, there was The Way led by Syl Davis.

When Syl sat down with you and you kind of connected over the love of jazz, what did he say the vision was for The Way?

Oh, yeah, he talked about a progressive youth organization.

We're going to put emphasis on our culture and our history to try to define ourselves.

WILLIAMS: Elder Spike Moss is recognized by many as a militant freedom fighter and an unshakable activist, always present in difficult moments.

But what I learned was that Spike was also a culture bearer who saw music and arts, in addition to street protests, as a way to make change in the lives of Black youth.

HINES: He literally introduces himself.

"Hi, I'm Spike Moss, you know, I heard you guys are drummers," kind of thing, um, you know, we'd love to have you come over, you know, and tryout-- be a part of the Elks kind of thing.

So we went over north with Spike.

This was 1964 that he said this, I'll never forget.

He said, "Man, watch out for Minneapolis police."

He said, "You know, they, you know, "pick us up, take us down the river, "you know, work us over, beat us up.

"And a lot of Minneapolis police refer to their billy club, their baton as their (bleep) knocker."

WILLIAMS: To navigate these tense times, the city needed effective leadership.

And in many ways, it had it with Arthur Naftalin, who was mayor for most of the difficult decade.

NATHANSON: Art was very cerebral.

He was a political science professor.

He was part of the very early DFL movement in the 1940s.

And so I think he very much reflected Humphrey's views on the need for a modern progressive movement.

LANSING: After 1963, police community relations continue to slowly degrade.

You have a number of reform efforts emanating from City Hall.

Mayor Arthur Naftalin is working hard to try to figure out how to create racially equitable policing.

And in the meantime, both Black and Indigenous communities in the city are advocating more and more loudly for not just themselves, but for policing that actually produces safety in their communities.

WILLIAMS: To address increasing police community conflicts, Mayor Naftalin initiated human rights training, building on Mayor Humphrey's groundbreaking police professional development training over a decade before.

But Minneapolis police resisted these reforms, calling the trainings, "rabidly pro Negro."

REPORTER (archival): It's hard for me to visualize Minneapolis without America's greatest summer festival.

WILLIAMS: In 1967, the Aquatennial Parade was a space of tension with the Minneapolis police.

According to many in the community, police roughly handled a Black youth.

The years of mounting police harassment, frustration over slow moving civil rights, and other factors boiled over.

In 1967, that night of the Aquatennial, we were beaten and taken to jail.

And it spilled over into north Minneapolis on Plymouth Avenue.

And especially some of, some of our older community members.

A lot of them were Christian.

They would ask, "Why do you tear up your own community?

What are you doing?"

And I would tell them, that was a Jesus, tear up the temple, turn over the tables moment.

When you're in rage and anger, you're going to vent that anger right there, right now where you are.

EL-KATI: I was there in '67 when the uprising occurred.

A revolt against oppression, that's, that's what it was.

It was not a riot.

A riot is nonpolitical.

They got nothing to do with history and economics.

And Black peoples' revolt grows out of history.

It's no different than Nat Turner or Denmark Vesey and 250 other insurrections in America on the part of Black people trying to get free from slavery.

NATHANSON: After the first night, Mayor Naftalin asked the governor to call out the National Guard.

And so the question is why calling out the National Guard?

But one of the observers, Harry Davis, who was a Black leader, observed, he said that, "Art knew his force very well," and the reason that he brought out the National Guard was mainly as a buffer between the cops and the protesters.

He realized that he wanted to keep the situation from escalating.

And it worked-- but, there was one cop who happened to be head of the Police Federation, who didn't like the idea that... that the troops were being held back, and that policeman was named Charlie Stenvig, and he would later emerge as a political figure himself.

CALVIN HAWKINSON (recording): He used the Federation in various ways to further his political advantage.

LANSING: What you see is a police union that really ramps up its political involvement.

So, it's critical to understand Stenvig's ascent as partly about the ways in which the police union is moving towards electoral politics.

Into policy-making itself.

To controlling the levers of government.

STENVIG (archival): An endorsement letter by the president of my opponent, President Nixon, refers to me as an extremist and reactionary for advocating a law and order for the city of Minneapolis.

LANSING: He's pairing this law and order message with a kind of an early version of what we would understand today as evangelical Christianity.

But God has always led me, and he's never let me down.

And I say, God's going to be my chief advisor.

It won't cost a city a penny.

LANSING: It proves to be a winning combination, and Stenvig will win that general election in June, largely with the support of the white working class in the city of Minneapolis-- including the support of organized labor.

Again, his union roots, his roots in the Police Officers Federation, are absolutely critical, because he's a known and open union advocate.

(no dialog) Once he's elected in June 1969, all the efforts that had made some headway in city government, across the city of Minneapolis, to try to grapple with racialized policing were undone within three or four months.

♪ ♪ WILLIAMS: Mayor Stenvig had campaigned on taking the handcuffs off the police, and that's one way to describe violent nights on Plymouth Avenue later that summer of '69.

Matt Eubanks, an activist and leader of the Citizen's Community Centers was convening community members late into the night outside The Way.

Deputy Inspector Edwin Schonnesen was in charge of the massing police presence.

Legendary journalist and then-"Star Tribune" reporter Molly Ivins described the confrontation as looking like a miniature replay of the Chicago Democratic Convention a year earlier.

♪ ♪ IVINS (dramatized): "Crowds taunting, "police charging, shouting, "the screams of civilians caught in the charge, "riot sticks rising and coming down.

"The thud of kicks on a body-- sensed rather than heard.

"At 12:22 A.M., the police lines paused "as the crowd reached the intersection "of Plymouth and Morgan.

"Suddenly, there was a shout of 'Charge!'

"The police rushed forward, and the crowd scattered.

"Again, the military-attack yell, "the shoes pounding the pavement, "screaming, panic, "sudden jamming into The Way.

"Then, the stick rises and comes down at his head, "again and again.

"He falls.

"He is kicked "again and again.

It is all on the television film taken at the scene."

MAN (archival): This was not an attack upon an individual, but it's an attack upon a community.

It's one force in the community, opposed to another group of powerless people who are attempting to assert their right-- you know their right to control their own lives, to control their own destinies, and control... PHELPS: It highlights the limits and fragility of Minneapolis's history and understanding of itself as a liberal place.

It highlights the importance of that pushback in the 1970s.

(archival): ...it affirms our original position.

("The Star-Spangled Banner" playing) WILLIAMS: Along with winning the mayor's office, the Police Federation had won on other fronts in the early 1970s as well.

In 1971, a grand jury issued a report with a number of recommendations, including one that suggested that public employees, police included, should be limited in their attempts to influence city policy, calling such activities a threat to democratic processes.

Also, a dramatic win for reform came from a state Supreme Court decision that gave the city the power to subpoena police officers for the first time.

These reforms were wins, but Mayor Stenvig and the police union pushed back hard.

STENVIG (archival): None of us can escape the fact that cities throughout the nation, Minneapolis included, face many serious problems.

I do believe that perhaps some... hoodlums, shall we use the word, have been, uh, uh... dictating policy to some degree.

WILLIAMS: The federation actively lobbied council members to nullify the court order, and the police politicking worked.

The city voted overwhelmingly to rescind the court order.

As with previous reforms and regulation efforts from the 80 years before, it was another step forward, two steps back.

Police political power was growing.

Unfortunately, the grim count of police brutality incidents against diverse communities was growing as well.

Stenvig was-- when he was head of the federation-- he was someone that was actively opposed to the young people doing anything other than being told what to do.

The young officers tried very hard-- probably 20 or 30 of us-- to bring about some changes.

WILLIAMS: Next-generation MPD officers like William Mavity continue to try to bring community policing and professionalization to the MPD, but continue to run into resistance from Stenvig and the old guard.

WILLIAMS: Let me ask you about this fraternity of young officers that you were working with.

What would you say was your primary motivation of that group?

What were you interested in, in terms of reform?

I think that we thought by creating a chapter of that in Minneapolis police, we would get more attention, and we thought that that would help us find more community support for what we were trying to do.

It was pretty clear that there was a division.

There were federation people, and there were people that were young officers trying to bring some good things and new things into the department.

And unfortunately, with Stenvig then becoming mayor, a lot of guys left.

They never really achieved what they had hoped to achieve.

WILLIAMS: Mavity, looking for professional development opportunities, accepted an invitation to study policing abroad, but a conflict over his status with the department during the fellowship played into Stenvig's efforts to silence him.

MAVITY: I came back happy with all the ideas and the things I had, the projects I had, I had written some of them out and everything, and I walked-- walked into his office on that Monday morning.

He got very angry.

He got red in the face, and he said, "You're the one that tells me all these problems with the city council."

He was angry at me because we put in a ride along.

I mean, he was angry with me because I was writing articles that went in the paper.

"If you leave the department, we're going to fire you.

"You are being disciplined for 15 days off without pay for violating the chain of command."

So I stood up, I looked at Charlie, and I said "(bleep) you, Charlie.

I quit."

The problematic ways in which Black and brown people experience policing is put on full display in 1971 with the dragging of Randy Samples.

Randy is 12 years old?

- 12 years old.

WILLIAMS: And he is out on a Saturday, outside of an arcade.

LANSING: On Hennepin Avenue.

WILLIAMS: And the officers are attempting to arrest a perpetrator.

Randy and his friend are kind of watching, and what happens?

LANSING: The police dogs are out.

He ends up in this altercation with the police dog, and then that becomes an altercation with these officers.

He will find himself arrested.

This 12-year-old boy will be dragged by his heels across Hennepin Avenue in broad daylight in downtown Minneapolis.

WILLIAMS: So importantly, there'll be a photographer on hand from the "Star Tribune," who will capture this image of the police dragging Randy Samples, and it'll go national.

♪ ♪ Two years later, "Time" magazine would offer this now emblematic image, celebrating the good life of Minnesota, describing its political and civic stability.

But it's hard for me not to think about these two iconic images and the Minnesota Paradox.

By the late 1970s, many from the fraternity-- the younger, reform-minded cops-- were pushed out of the MPD, sometimes leaving the department for leadership opportunities elsewhere.

(siren blaring) Minneapolis residents again turned to mutual aid and self-reliance for public safety, including against abusive police.

MOSS: The Soul Patrol's position was, if he did a crime, take him to jail, but don't harm him.

If you harm him, we're going to interfere.

That was their role.

And that was really to police the police.

MOSS: Right.

MAN: Police stopping someone.

I want you to stop here, turn your lights off.

You may get a chance to see what's happening.

PHILLIPS: One of the best trivia facts is that the American Indian Movement was born in Minneapolis in 1968.

The less fun fact about it is that it is directly in response to police brutality.

And so, the creation of the AIM patrol, which has its roots in the Black Panthers.

You know, the cop-watching patrols in north Minneapolis in 1967 is really a way for Native folks to quite literally protect themselves.

And so you have the folks, they'd put on... the red shirts, they'd put on these bright red jackets, they'd have their two-way radios and their police scanners, and they're going to these places where, you know, there's an incident, or potentially an incident, between native folks and Minneapolis police officers, and they're bystanders.

They're not interfering, they're not doing anything, but they're observing.

And in many cases, they're recording.

And so, their presence in many instances helped resolve the situation in a much more peaceful manner.

There's a really fantastic photo of the first AIM meeting, and they're all smiling.

That's one of the photos I, I love to reference, that I love to show in my classes, because again, it shows that joy, because you have Native folks who recognize nobody's going to help them, and so they decide to help themselves.

♪ ♪ No one in America Will talk to you the way I'm talking to you.

Yeah, I-- we know.

No one in America.

WILLIAMS: It's a big deal.

Few police leaders in American history were more famous or infamous than Anthony Bouza, who led the Minneapolis Police Department from 1980 to 1988, after rising to notoriety in the New York Police Department.

You seem to have a lot of support in the community, though.

It seemed like the community really loved you.

Well, the people loved me.

That was my constituency.

Tell us about that.

BOUZA: When you get to be chief of police, you have to decide who is going to be your base.

The union and the cop members-- be one of the boys, tolerate racist acts-- the political establishment, the mayor; or the public.

The policeman fundamentally has a ringside seat on the greatest show on earth... WILLIAMS: Tony Bouza's public profile soared following his appearance in the 1970s documentary "The Police Tapes," where sharp insights and commanding presence made a lasting impact.

That film, as well as his dynamic leadership style in the Bronx, made him one of the inspirations for the fictional Frank Furillo from the hit TV drama "Hill Street Blues."

(siren wailing) WOMAN (on radio): Armed robbery in progress... (sirens continue) WILLIAMS: His unfiltered comments, well-read rants, and pointed barbs all made him a press favorite during his time in Minneapolis.

REPORTER: You don't-- you don't like Bouza?

No, I don't.

REPORTER: What don't you like about him?

I don't like his attitudes towards the gay people in the city.

WILLIAMS: Like Black, brown, and Native communities, LGBTQ-plus Minnesotans have faced over a century of police harassment, with officers policing the private and social lives of consenting adults with impunity.

By the late 1970s, police and political leadership ramped up this effort, with raids on bathhouses, adult bookstores, and other LGBTQ-plus gathering places.

STEWART VAN CLEVE: There were aspects of police and municipal behavior in the 1980s that were shocking, I mean, that were just downright shocking.

The Minneapolis Police Department was storming into bathhouses, beating up the people inside of them, dragging them out into the street, you know, confiscating the contents of these bathhouses, putting them on display in City Hall for like, public-- you know, for these kind of photo op opportunities.

And Tim Campbell was one of these people who would go right up to police officers and say, "Why are you targeting gay men?"

You know, he would ask these direct questions to people, and he would publish it on the front page of his newspaper.

Words are real cheap with Chief Bouza.

And he's been real visible with some pro-gay words, which has rankled cops.

And they've taken their anger out on us, in ways like "Lord of The Flies."

Harassment, a small amount of brutality, a tremendous amount of arrests.

We're not overjoyed.

At least, I'm not overjoyed with what's gone on in regard to Tony Bouza.

We've had $1 million more of expense in the gay community with entrapment arrests under Bouza's administration than in the previous two years.

REPORTER: Let the chief-- what about entrapment?

Well, I... I think that we are performing-- that we are vigorously enforcing vice laws.

♪ ♪ Can we talk a little bit about your decoy operations?

Who is the principal villain in street prostitution?

The John.

So, arrest Johns.

Send policewomen out, and-- and let them look like prostitutes, and arrest the Johns who approached them.

♪ ♪ WILLIAMS: Gail Plewacki.

BOUZA: I had a woman named Gail Plewacki that I sent out there... and she was mugged like, 200 times.

You know, she came into my office one day, I... I said, "I'm taking you off "that c... the, the decoy.

I'm assigning another woman."

"Why?"

"It's my responsibility to distribute the risk."

And of course, that was one of the legal foundations of the critique of the decoy squads, that the police were actively trying to entrap or ensnare citizens in illegal activity.

WILLIAMS: Which becomes a big conversation point in the Sal Scott killing.

REPORTER: The six Minneapolis police officers who make up the decoy unit, began working the streets in January of 1983.

They're charged from police officials to analyze crime patterns and recreate them selectively, using officers to pose as victims in an attempt to arrest the perpetrators.

Police Chief Tony Bouza says the operation has been successful, netting hundreds of criminals.

Minority leaders call the operation a bit too successful, though, netting, they say, a disproportionate number of minorities.

Especially strong public concern came in the aftermath of the shooting death of Sal Saran Scott last September.

WILLIAMS: There was the controversial killing of Sal Scott.

BOUZA: Yeah, that was a strange case.

I'm not God, I'm not the repository of all information.

So I, I want to make it clear that I... we're dealing with my own flawed human understanding.

I investigated the case, and... concluded that it had been an accidental shooting.

REPORTER: Officer William James was carrying a double-barreled shotgun.

Police say the suspect, who was unarmed, at first appeared to give himself up, but then... For some unknown reason, a man turned, jumped on one of the officers, and the gun went off.

And we did not shoot him in church.

He was not praying, he had mugged someone.

He's a mugger.

That young man was murdered.

That's the issue.

The bottom line is the decoy program that they set up, we want disbanded in our community.

That's the first thing we're fighting for.

MOSS: Mayor Fraser called me up.

"I need you to stop calling Sal Scott's case murder."

I said "I'll never stop, it was murder.

I have the pictures," and I let him see.

So I had copies of them.

I let him see them.

The reason they were so, so threatening-- just like Floyd, you got that phone.

On this case, I had the pictures.

And, boy, they-- "You're going to stop."

I said, "No, I'm not.

It's murder.

I'm going to say it."

BOUZA (voiceover): I wasn't a crazy liberal.

I was a law and order chief.

They think I'm a liberal because I think Blacks ought to have simple justice.

I mean that, that tells you where we are.

Good God.

And you know what happened to crime in, in my nine years?

Inexorable climb.

Why?

Couldn't figure it out.

I had run a very aggressive police department in the Bronx.

Crime rose.

I ran a very aggressive police department in the subways.

Crime rose.

I ran a very, very aggressive police department in Minneapolis.

I taught them to do chokeholds and-- and chases, and all kinds of aggressive things.

All kinds.

Decoys, stakeouts.

Uh, stings.

Very aggressive.

Arrests went way up, and so did crime.

I thought, why?

I can't control crime.

Cops are irrelevant to crime.

WILLIAMS: Increased policing, increasing crime.

Anthony Bouza seemed genuinely perplexed by the contradiction of police work, even decades after his retirement from the MPD in 1988.

The late chief's three three-year terms seemed to achieve Mayor Fraser's goal of stamping out overt police politicking.

But Bouza's tenure, like much of Minneapolis police history, remains paradoxical.

As Anthony Bouza was departing City Hall in the late '80s, a University of Minnesota law student arrived in Minneapolis and into the long line of public safety activists and reformers.

Keith Ellison would go on to be elected to the U.S.

Congress and to become one of the most recognized attorneys general in the nation, following his prosecution of Derek Chauvin.

But he got his start in civic engagement in Minnesota as part of a movement that successfully fought for a civilian review board to address police misconduct.

I think civilian review can have a positive impact, but over time, they tend to... be subject to regulatory capture, meaning that the people who are there day in and day out will eventually get friends of theirs sympathetic to their point of view in a decision-making process, and change the rules to essentially neuter the institution, which is what happened with Minneapolis Civilian Review.

WILLIAMS: When Rodney King was brutally beaten by the L.A.P.D., and when the officers all walked away free after acquittal, Los Angeles burned in protest.

Ellison and others in Minneapolis organized a massive peaceful march calling for justice and change in response.

You lead a march from Penn and Plymouth?

ELLISON: Sure.

WILLIAMS: Down here, 6,000 people.

ELLISON: Yes.

WILLIAMS: What was happening in that moment?

ELLISON: Sort of a, a culmination, right?

It just felt like a statement needed to be made.

We were very deliberately reaching out to the, the human family, right?

WILLIAMS: The moment in time even led to a truce among Twin Cities gangs, offering hope for reducing Black-on-Black violence.

(crowd cheering) But later that year, the shocking murder of MPD officer Jerry Haaf sent a terrible tremor through the city, inflamed aggressive policing, revived the law-and-order mantra from a generation before, and emboldened the Minneapolis Police Federation to reenter the political sphere and amplify their influence in the years that followed.

REPORTER: Today, the Minneapolis Police Federation unveiled a radio ad which some fear will politicize the situation further.

ANNOUNCER (on radio): ...Waited until he was alone, snuck up behind him, fired their illegal guns into his back.

WILLIAMS: The radio ad, police union rallies, press conferences.

This moment stands out in the Federation's history of activism and political actions.

Now, today, the police officers' union again was in a high-profile role at a public rally.

WILLIAMS: Reminiscent of the political campaigning in the early 1960s... (crowd cheering) ...and the dramatic moment to come in 2019, when the union president stepped onto the political stage with a presidential candidate.

With the dawn of a new century, old challenges persisted.

In a 2002 incident, Minneapolis police used a chokehold to restrain an African American man.

He died in police custody, by what the coroner would describe as "neck compression."

Christopher Burns was the first official homicide committed by the Minneapolis police, using a neck restraint on a suspect already in custody.

He would not be the last.

Other troubling moments in the new millennium included the city of Minneapolis paying out more than $2 million in police misconduct settlements in 2004.

In 2008, Quincy Smith died in police custody after being tased and beaten.

In 2010, David Smith was killed during an arrest when officers knelt on his back, causing what the coroner called "mechanical asphyxiation."

In 2015, Jamar Clark was shot and killed by MPD during an arrest.

(indistinct radio crosstalk) OFFICER: You're going to face the door right now.

OFFICER 2: Listen up, stop.

CLARK: I'm leaving!

WILLIAMS: The ongoing incidents of police violence across the country fueled the Black Lives Matter movement.

And for Gary Hines of The Sounds of Blackness, the group that gave us the 1990s hit "Optimistic," George Floyd's murder brought forward a different call.

The civil rights era lament: sick and tired of being sick and tired.

- ♪ We can't breathe ♪ - ♪ No more mothers crying ♪ ♪ No more of us dying ♪ - ♪ No more ♪ - ♪ Sick and tired of being sick and tired ♪ - ♪ We can't breathe ♪ - ♪ Sick and tired of being sick and tired ♪ WILLIAMS: And so, we found our way back to the third precinct in 2025.

The building that was erected as an attempted reform itself.

The ideals of its construction never fully realized.

The station that dispatched the officers who would confront George Floyd two miles away.

At this place.

♪ ♪ Five years on, the space where George Floyd took his final breath was also awaiting its future form.

Whatever it becomes, George Floyd Square will always be seen as hallowed ground.

A place the world came to a reckoning with how far American policing had strayed.

♪ ♪ SPEAKER: George Floyd changing the world is a energy, a monument engraved on every intersection, representing every stolen name executed, handcuffed and suffocated, gunned down, violated, branded on every police station.

Changing the world.

Should it always begin with death?

WILLIAMS: But our journey of historical recovery suggests this should also be a space to recall the century-and-a-half struggle over public safety in a city of paradoxes.

Of police and politics, mayors and chiefs, resistance and reform.

SPEAKER: That's all we're asking you to do, is to get up and do something.

WOMAN: Agreed.

SPEAKER: Put the people in office that will make change.

(crowd cheering, applauding) Give money to those who are about change.

Pray for those who enact change.

Do something.

♪ ♪ WILLIAMS: This history is written.

And it did lead to the flames of an uprising.

And they were followed by the flickering candle lights of guarded optimism.

As we write the next chapter in the pursuit for better public safety, I'm reminded of James Baldwin, and wondering which flame will be the fire next time.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪