Family of man killed by Minneapolis police sues, allege mental health crisis ignored

The family of 22-year-old man who was fatally shot three years ago by Minneapolis police during a long-running standoff is suing the city and various officers, alleging that the department failed to send mental health crisis staff to the scene despite knowing about his psychological history.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court on Sunday, one day before the third anniversary of the death of Andrew Tekle Sundberg at his south Minneapolis apartment building in the 900 block of 21st Avenue S. The standoff was initiated after a neighbor called 911 to report gunshots fired into her unit, where she lived with two small children.

Five months later, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office said no charges will be filed in connection with the shooting, deciding the officers involved were justified in their actions.

Cindy Sundberg, Sundberg’s mother, issued a statement Monday that read, “We lost a beautiful human and miss him every day. We will continue to fight for justice for Tekle and every life stolen by state-sanctioned violence. Every person deserves to be seen as created in God’s image and responded to fairly. He should still be with us.”

The suit contends that police snipers killed Sundberg even though “the scene was made, [and] Mr. Sundberg was restricted to his apartment.”

The suit alleges police violated Sundberg’s civil rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act, and seeks more than $100,000 in damages and changes in Minneapolis police training and policies when it comes to encounters with someone in a mental health crisis.

A spokeswoman for the city declined to comment about the suit.

The suit points out that Tekle Sundberg was “disabled by reason of intellectual and mental health disabilities, which the officers on the scene could observe, and of which the police were informed by [his parents].”

Despite this information, the suit says, police did not, as required, “dispatch a mental health crisis team ... or any mental health worker.” The county had a mental health team available to respond to the standoff, which began at 9:30 p.m. July 13 and ended about at 4:18 a.m. with Tekle Sundberg’s death, according to the suit.

Instead, the suit continues, “MPD decided to use the 40-mm weapon mounted in a turret on the armored Bearcat to try and remove the window glass and curtain from Mr. Sundberg’s window prior to using tear gas and fired 19 less lethal rounds through the window.

“Minutes before Mr. Sundberg’s death, he was hanging out of his second-floor apartment window speaking gibberish (as officers characterized it.)”

The lawsuit says that Sundberg’s parents, Mark and Cindy Sundberg, arrived to the scene around midnight and informed MPD crisis negotiators about their son’s mental health history, and that their request that MPD change the negotiator to a Black man or woman was ignored. The suit says the parents were refused entry into the apartment to speak with Sundberg and repeatedly begged officers not to shoot their son. MPD officers assured them only non-lethal projectiles would be used, according to the lawsuit.

Also, according to the suit, before the fatal shots were fired, Sgt. Shawn Kelly falsely announced over the radio that Sundberg had threatened to shoot police officers, which “put the snipers stationed on the roof across the street in a falsely heightened state of alert.”

In the report that ruled officers were justified in the shooting of Sundberg, officer Aaron Pearson spelled out factors at the scene that led to him opening fire. They included: Sundberg’s gunfire narrowly missed others in the apartment building; he shot at officers as they announced their presence; and he threatened to kill officers while making a hand gesture of a gun and then appeared at a window while pointing a handgun in the officers’ direction.

Police body camera video released less than a week after the shooting showed a chaotic scene in which officers rescued a mother and her two young children as Sundberg repeatedly fired a gun from inside his nearby apartment. A one point he yelled, “I’m an international terrorist,” the report read.

Pearson and officer Zachary Seraphine believed Sundberg was going through a mental health crisis. He broke through holes in his window made by 40-millimeter rounds that other officers fired earlier and aimed his gun toward officers on the ground, the report said. That’s when Pearson and Seraphine fired.