The council members stood shoulder-to-shoulder in a city park adorned with massive letters reading “Defund Police.” Days earlier, George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer a few blocks away, unleashing massive protests nationwide. Now hundreds of protesters had gathered in the park. They wanted justice. They wanted accountability. They wanted reform. “We should and can abolish our current Minneapolis police system,” Councilwoman Alondra Cano said at the time. On Tuesday, more

Jaleel Stallings shot at the MPD; a jury acquitted him of wrongdoing Before the white, unmarked cargo van of the Minneapolis Police Department drove down Lake Street, an officer gave Sgt. Andrew Bittell his orders: “Drive down Lake Street. You see a group, call it out. OK great! F*** ’em up, gas ’em, f*** ’em up.” Bittell turned to his SWAT unit in the van and said, “Alright, we’re rolling down Lake Street. The first f***ers we see, we’re just hammering ’em with 40s,” according to body camera

MINNEAPOLIS—Witnesses struggled to maintain composure Tuesday as they described watching and in some cases taking video of the encounter between George Floyd and Derek Chauvin in an emotional second day of testimony in the murder trial of the former police officer. Prosecutors began their case with extensive use of the video showing Mr. Floyd under the knee of Mr. Chauvin as he begs for his life and eventually loses consciousness. Several of the first prosecution witnesses have served to amplif

City workers on Thursday began removing memorials and barricades from the intersection where the police killed George Floyd just over a year ago. The unannounced effort brought hundreds of people to the scene in protest. “I saw everything. And I just was like, ‘Andy,’ to my husband, I’m like, ‘I think you need to get up.’ And he went out there. And I called him. I said, ‘What’s going on?’ And he said, ‘They’re tearing it all down.’” Reporter: “Does that surprise you?” “Yeah, it — no one knew.”

The $1.3 billion lawsuit filed by the voting machine company Dominion against Minnesota pillow mogul Mike Lindell Monday is not the first time he’s faced a potentially ruinous lawsuit. By late 2003, after more than a decade owning his beloved Victoria bar called Schmitty’s Tavern, Lindell had $147,000 in debts, according to court records, and couldn’t keep up with the bar mortgage payments. Lindell sold the bar that year for $500,000, with part of the purchase financed through two promissory no

Muhammad Abdul-Ahad and his crew of about 20 Minneapolis “violence interrupters” were outside of Stop N Shop Tobacco at 17th and Lake Street in Minneapolis when a guy walked up to them looking intoxicated and agitated. A few minutes later, two cars pulled up and a couple of men got out. One had a gun. Then the store’s security guard came out with a gun on his hip saying, “Hey, hey, hey what’s goin’ on?” That’s when Abdul-Ahad’s team sprang into action, trying to separate the men. Trying to pr

At 8:15 a.m. at George Floyd Square, 16 people — mostly women — are perched on chairs, benches and couches in between the idled pumps at the Speedway, which is covered in graffiti and serves as a gathering space now. They have met twice a day, every day, since Floyd died on the street under a cop’s knee just steps away. Meet on the Street, they call it. Neighbors who’d never met before now work together to keep the square safe, autonomous and organized. Their motto: No justice, no streets. “

Days after reopening Cup Foods on Aug. 3, co-owner Mahmoud Abumayyaleh was back behind the store counter, talking to customers and his employees while outside, people milled about the makeshift memorial to George Floyd. If you went into the store for a pack of cigarettes, a sandwich or cell phone minutes, you may have noticed the gun on Abumayyaleh’s hip. And, the new armed security guard. The retail routine goes on, but everything has changed. No longer just the neighborhood store where you c

On the evening of June 25, Michael Grunke was watching TV in his apartment on the 3600 block of Columbus Avenue — about a block and a half away from the George Floyd memorial — when he heard a series of loud bangs and glass shattering. He called 911. While he waited for police, he went to his front room and saw a bullet hole in his window. As he was looking over the damage, about a dozen more shots rang out. Grunke dashed back into a room that wasn’t exposed to the street. A Minneapolis Police

On May 29, Terrell Bryant had decided he was going to die, and take a cop with him. He’d gotten into a fight with his sister and left her home in Hopkins to go to a buddy’s, where they got into an argument about the Bible. He didn’t have a job or home, he was broke, and he had separated and wasn’t able to see his daughters. And so when George Floyd died on the streets of Minneapolis, beneath the knee of a cop, Bryant made a plan. He was going to confront police, kill one — and end up dead. “I

Jeff Schafer leaves a small plastic baggie of what he suspects is heroin on his desk, then walks out of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe Police Department in Onamia and gets into a black, unmarked SUV on a sunny Thursday afternoon in November. He has everything he needs to do his job as a patrol officer today — except the authority to do it. “Today is check day,” he says, or “per cap day.” It’s the day tribal band members get a cut of the revenue from Grand Casino, across the highway from the poli