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The city of Minneapolis will pay more than $200,000 to settle separate discrimination allegations by two former police officers, both of whom were disciplined after speaking out against the department’s internal policies and culture.
Former deputy chief Art Knight, who is black, was stripped of his post in 2020 after a newspaper article criticized the agency’s hiring practices. He sued the city last year, arguing that the demotion was in retaliation for continuing to “speak the truth about hiring and recruiting policies that disproportionately impact would-be police minorities.”
Former police officer Colleen Ryan has filed a lawsuit with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, accusing MPD leadership of discriminating against her because she is a lesbian and advocates for “women and queer officials” in the workplace. She quit last fall after more than six years on the job, enduring harassment in what she described as a culture of misogyny and homophobia — a cult-like adherence to former President Donald Trump — within the department deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
After a closed-door meeting Thursday, the nine city councils unanimously agreed to award $133,600 to Ryan and $70,000 to Knight. A Minneapolis police spokesman referred comments to the city attorney’s office, which declined to comment.
The settlement comes at a particularly sensitive time in Minneapolis, which has paid millions to settle allegations of police misconduct by police officers in the week following the murder of George Floyd, And still faces enormous pressure to reform policing in the city.
Last month, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights released a report condemning the MPD’s use of a race-based policing model that “leads officers to unnecessarily escalate conflict or use inappropriate levels of force.” It also found that Minneapolis police officers frequently used racist and sexist language, even to describe colleagues.
‘White boy’ comments spark backlash
After 30 years in the military, Knight was known as an outspoken officer who was always willing to be candid with politicians and community members.
But Knight’s comments in an October 2020 newspaper story about law enforcement attracting and retaining recruits of color sparked an internal backlash.
Former chief Medaria Arradondo, who is also black, fired Knight on the same day this article was published in the Star Tribune, which quoted Knight as saying that unless MPD changes its recruitment , training and promotion strategies, or it will continue to “get the same old white boys”.
Some rank-and-file cops denounced his language as being unnecessarily divisive, while Knight’s supporters argue the backlash is rooted in “white fragility,” revolving around uncomfortable but necessary racial conversations.
Nine months later, Knight sued the city, claiming the demotion was part of a pattern of discrimination he faced as an outspoken black officer. Returning to his rank of civil servant lieutenant will cost him his reputation and role in the police department “where he has the opportunity to make a change within the department that murdered George Floyd, so there is an urgent need to better reflect its sworn protection” community,” according to the lawsuit.
Read more: Minneapolis struggles to recruit new police officers when needed most
Knight remained on unpaid sick leave while most of the cases were pending. After the settlement was reached on Thursday, his lawyers released a statement saying Knight was ready to put the chapter behind him.
“For about three decades, Art Knight has bravely served his community. If you live in or near the city, you know that as a black man, he did so in a challenging environment,” says Be gentle,” said Ben Kwan, a Minneapolis attorney. “…He can now focus on healing the wounds caused by his work and quickly transition to civilian life. For that, he is grateful.”
Opportunity to be rejected
In her human rights complaint, Ryan claimed that police leaders rejected her as a field training officer because of her “sex and/or sexual orientation.” After George Floyd’s murder, she was disciplined by GQ magazine in an unsanctioned, anonymous interview in which she criticized a toxic, quasi-bellicose police in Minneapolis, complaint alleges Culture that breeds dangerous cops like Derek Chauvin, who was convicted of murdering Floyd.
Read more: Only Minneapolis police officer formally disciplined for misconduct related to department’s riot response has left
The complaint alleges that the department had recently promoted two heterosexual men on her shift, and their recent misconduct was even more egregious. Ryan said one violated the department’s search and seizure policy and the other faces an open DWI case. When she brought up the discrepancy, the sheriff said police couldn’t risk letting Ryan put her “personal agenda above the department while training recruits on the streets,” according to the human rights complaint.
Ryan declined to comment on the settlement, but in an interview with the Star Tribune last fall, she said she joined the Minneapolis Police Department to help victims of domestic violence and sexual assault in hopes of changing the history of men Dominant machismo culture. in.
Ryan, a staunch Democrat, said the department was hooked on Trump’s “pro-blue” politics. Colleagues turned to Ryan when they learned that Ryan supported Hillary Clinton (who they considered anti-police) to run for president in 2016 and ran in St. Petersburg. The 2017 Paul Women’s Parade.
Other officers refused to cooperate with her and stopped supporting her during dangerous calls, sometimes late at night in north Minneapolis, she said.
Ryan shared with the Star Tribune images of meme prints that started showing up near her locker after officials discovered she preferred Clinton to Trump. One showed a photo of three women in police uniforms with a message boasting about learning to shoot and the ability to wear bulletproof vests – “No bulletproof vests” [expletive] Ridiculously pink hat and “protest,” referring to the iconic pink hat worn in the Women’s March.
“It’s clearly directed at me because I’m the only liberal official in the area,” Ryan said. “The sergeant, the lieutenant, the inspector—everyone knows that.”
— Staff writer Liz Navratil contributed to this report.
This story is part of a collaboration with star tribune Through FRONTLINE’s Local News Initiative, funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and PBS.