‘Red alert’: Researchers say Minneapolis is failing in response to domestic violence calls

A group of domestic violence researchers issued a grave warning to Minneapolis City Council members Tuesday, saying systemic lapses in how the police department responds to intimate-partner assaults is enabling repeat abusers.

“Council members, this is a red alert,” said Cheryl Thomas, executive director of nonprofit Global Rights for Women. “Our community has a serious public safety problem and a dangerous record for failing to address gender-based violence that should not be tolerated by our city leaders.”

Two years ago, Thomas co-authored an exhaustive study identifying problems in how the Minneapolis Police Department handles domestic violence reports and offering a list of recommendations. Since then, she said, the city has yet to take any significant action to improve its response, and women have continued to be harmed — in some cases killed — as a result.

Among the glaring gaps, the 2023 report found, is a pattern of abusers being able to elude arrest by fleeing the scene before police arrive. Some assailants have learned officers will not make a serious effort to locate them afterward, even if the victim has a no-contact order in place, according to the 2023 study.

“When abusers know it is a city practice to not follow up, they are empowered, and that is what has happened in Minneapolis,” told council members Tuesday.

Thomas and several other speakers also ratcheted up pressure on council members for the city and police to do more in response to the case of Allison Lussier, a 47-year-old woman who was found dead in her North Loop apartment last year. Lussier’s family and friends say she was killed by her abusive on-again off-again boyfriend and that authorities didn’t do enough to prevent or properly investigate the case, despite a long trail of documented abuse and threats.

The case is classified as unsolved, and no one has been charged in her death.

Thomas said in 34 years of working in this field she’s “rarely seen a more dangerous abuser” than Lussier’s, yet police didn’t treat him like a serious threat.

“Nearly every single sign of a high-risk offender was present in this case,” said Thomas.

A spokesman for the police department didn’t comment after the meeting Tuesday afternoon.

In the four-year period ending in 2022 examined in the study, about one-third of the 11,645 incidents of aggravated assaults in Minneapolis were classified as domestic assaults by police.

The domestic violence study started as a follow-up to a 2017 report from the Minneapolis Police Conduct Oversight Commission — part of the city’s civil rights division — that found only 20% of more than 43,000 domestic violence calls led to reports or arrests. That puts Minneapolis in stark contrast with similar data reported the same year by the Justice Department, which found police throughout the country took a report in 78% of those types of calls on average and 39% led to arrest or charges.

The assessment took three years and cites input from MPD leadership, the Minneapolis City Attorney’s Office, Hennepin County officials, a judge and a range of experts and advocates who work with domestic violence survivors. It also includes anecdotes and quotes from survivors who participated in several focus groups. They are not identified by name.

One survivor described how in May 2022 her partner pressed a gun to her head and later broke her nose by dragging her with his car. She said she called 911 and waited at a gas station with witnesses to the assault, but it took an hour and a half for officers to arrive. In the meantime, her partner stole her car. When police showed up, “I was covered in blood but I think they didn’t think it was serious. He was driving around looking for me. He drove by while police were there, and I pointed him out, but they didn’t do anything.”

The study found officers often fail to interview witnesses to an abuser’s conduct, including children, or document their identity and contact information, making these cases more difficult to prosecute.

Police also don’t properly document property crimes that accompany domestic violence, which in turn reduces victims’ physical and economic security and chances for restitution.

And the department doesn’t use data to identify and triage resources toward the most dangerous offenders, according to the researchers.

Out of more than 2,000 victims identified in Minneapolis police data from 2021 through 2023, about 70% involved a boyfriend, girlfriend or ex-partner. About 7% of victims were spouses of the offender, and 5% were children. The vast majority of victims — nearly 80% — were female.

The study found that women of color were at greater risk of not being helped, and some felt they needed to carry weapons to defend themselves rather than call the police. One survivor, who is Black, said her neighbors called 911 after her partner grabbed her out of the shower and choked her. Police burst into the bathroom and found her partner bleeding, and she said they arrested her instead of him.

Native American women like Lussier are disproportionately victims of murder in Minnesota, often at the hands of their partners, said Nicole Matthews, executive director of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition, at the council meeting.

“One of the issues that we heard over and over and over again from families were their relatives had been murdered, and it was classified either as an overdose or a suicide, ” she said. “It’s always the families who are pushing and pushing and pushing, as we’ve seen with [Lussier’s] case.”

Lussier’s aunt and a group of people advocating for more action in her case were present in the meeting, waving signs and some shouting for the council to intervene in the case.

A domestic violence working group, tasked with implementing recommendations from the report, also presented on its progress Tuesday. Among the recommendations is a risk-assessment tool that would help police identify and triage the most dangerous assailants. The group plans to report on its progress later this year.