Body Cameras Show How Police Acted During Minneapolis’ Largest Mass Arrest
Minneapolis, MN — As contention across the country between communities and law enforcement festers, and for the fifth anniversary of Minnesota’s largest mass arrest, Unicorn Riot is publishing its fourth exclusive law enforcement-related video release from the historic events of Nov. 4, 2020. In a transparency video dump, UR is releasing the footage of 73 Minneapolis Police (MPD) videos from the arrest of over 646 people the night after the 2020 elections.
Recorded just a few months after police killed George Floyd and then brutally reacted to protests, the videos worn by 45 MPD officers showcase three dozen hours of officer interactions and tactic discussions while illustrating MPD’s antagonistic relationship with the community. Strikingly, more than 24% of the 45 officers have killed community members while on duty, and a large swath of other officers had numerous accounts of egregious actions against the community.
We’re releasing the videos in full for public benefit and research, along with a curated media guide that provides information on each video. Watch a snippet of the body camera videos below. Also watch Unicorn Riot’s full live stream from the night along with a litany of related media, embedded below.
See the Media Guide // Access all videos
Officers are recorded being paranoid about the protesters, especially civil rights activist Nekima Levy Armstrong, amped up for violence, and sharing tactics for a shootout against the crowd. They’re also recorded joking with each other about eating gummies and mushrooms, talking about finding “the Unicorn Riot guy,” complaining about their jobs, dissing the protesters, chatting about their wives Halloween costumes and griping about being hungry.
Seen in these videos is the collaboration between various agencies in the large operation that closed one of the state’s main interstates for over five hours. More than 646 people were arrested during the family-friendly protest against Donald Trump that occurred a day after the 2020 election. The large crowd of around 1,000 people was surrounded by heavily armed riot police and other enforcement as soon as it got on I-94 at Cedar, despite the protest’s plans to get off at the next exit. MPD officers provided the main kettle for the protesters and surrounded the crowd on I-94 while Troopers from the Minnesota State Patrol made the arrests.
Happening near the end of 2020, one of the most historic years of unrest in the country, that started in Minneapolis, the relationship between the community and police was contentious at best. During the height of the George Floyd Uprising, at least 89 protesters were identified as having sustained significant injuries from the use of less-lethal weaponry by MPD, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Of those protesters, at least 10 sustained eye trauma from projectiles and 16 received traumatic brain injuries. At least one person, Norman Truman, succumbed to their injuries after being shot with a projectile by Minneapolis Police,
The Minneapolis Police Department was reprimanded for its approach to protesters after a Department of Justice Investigation that was published in 2023.
“These indiscriminate uses of force suggest that officers’ true purpose is not to prevent criminal activity, but to retaliate against protesters for their constitutionally protected speech,” the report reads.
As noted, 11 of the 45 MPD officers, or more than 24% of those whose footage is being released from the night of Nov. 4, 2020, have killed community members while on duty.
Seven officers had killed others before the mass arrest. Four others have participated in MPD actions that killed two people, Ahmed Guled in 2009 and Amir Locke in 2022, and several others have had various violent transgressions. Links to each officer’s list of complaints, as compiled by Communities United Against Police Brutality, are linked in the media guide.
- Kyle Pond was among the officers who had killed Chiasher Vue while locking his four children in unheated squad cars for four hours in north Minneapolis in December 2019. Vue was a 52-year-old Hmong immigrant.
- Dustin Schwarze fatally shot an unarmed Jamar Clark in 2015. Clark was a 24-year-old Black American.
- Lucas Peterson and Michael Meath fatally shot unarmed Terrance Franklin in 2013. Franklin was a 22-year-old Black American. Peterson has a long track record of excessive force and killing community members. Peterson was also involved in training Derek Chauvin.
- Adam Moen was employed with the Brooklyn Park Police Department when he fatally shot James Barsness, along with a handful of other officers, in 2011. Barsness was a 28-year-old white American.
- Carlos Baires Escobar and Nicholas McCarthy were involved in the 2008 retaliatory killing of teacher and disc jockey Quincy Smith, or “Q the Blacksmith,” after Smith sued MPD for excessive force. Smith was beaten and tased to death. Smith was a 24-year-old Black American.
Other examples of officers involved in higher profile crimes include:
- Marcus Ottney had been arrested for a 3rd Degree DWI after crashing his car while drunk in Blaine, MN, just a few months prior to the Nov. 2020 mass arrest and was suspended for 30 hours in 2022 because of the incident.
- John Beiderman, Ryan Carrero, and Dominic Manelli were on the SWAT team that fatally shot Amir Locke in 2022. Locke was a 22-year-old Black American.
- Christopher Tucker was named in a lawsuit brought by the family of Ahmed Guled, who was killed by the MPD in 2009. Guled was a 24-year-old Somali immigrant.
- Paul O’Hanlon shot a woman in south Minneapolis in 2008 – she survived her wounds.
- Steven Mosey and other officers were involved in a racist attack on a Black family in north Minneapolis in 2011 in which they shot and killed multiple dogs in front of children, stole $9,400 from the mother’s purse, and physically assaulted their father while shouting racial epithets.
For a detailed look at some of the 73 videos view the curated media guide and access all of the videos in our vault here.
Catch up on our past coverage below, including a High-Definition version of our live stream from the frontline of the mass arrest.
Helicopter Footage From Mass Arrest Reveals State Trooper Surveillance Capabilities, Tactics, and Communications [August 2023]
Exclusive: State Patrol Spy Plane Over Protest (Video) [February 2021]
Shame Games: Minneapolis Police Mock Community Engagement Officer [May 2021]
Reportbacks From the 646+, Detained During Minnesota’s Largest Mass Arrest [April 2022]
Protesters Demand Elections Remain Untampered Across United States [Nov. 2020]
Article cover image by L. Cam Anderson. Media Guide curated by Randon Martin, L. Cam Anderson, and Niko Georgiades.
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