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MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — A prominent Black organization is responding to a report that Minneapolis police spied on them with secret social media accounts.
The accusations were part of a scathing 72-page report that Minnesota’s Department of Human Rights released last month.
The report concluded the Minneapolis Police Department displayed a pattern of racial discrimination over a 10-year period.
One section is about how officers allegedly used covert social media accounts to target and surveil Black organizations, for no reasons of public safety or suspected criminal activity.
The Urban League, which advocates for the Black community, is named as one of those organizations. No further details are given.
“I would’ve expected and would’ve hoped that the Minnesota Department of Human Rights would at least have provided some greater clarity about what actions were taken and by whom,” said Steven Belton, president and CEO of Urban League Twin Cities. “It seems to me it’s the height of irony, if not in fact the heart of hubris, that in a scathing report about the lack of transparency on the Minneapolis Police Department, that the [MDHR] itself is committing that same lack of transparency.”
Even in a private meeting, Belton says the MDHR Commissioner Rebecca Lucero wouldn’t share any specifics about how police allegedly targeted the league online. Belton says she cited privacy laws.
Steven Belton (credit: CBS)
WCCO has also asked investigators for the supporting evidence that led to their conclusions in the report, but was denied due to privacy reasons.
The law does give the commissioner some discretion to share information from case files.
“I can’t think of any investigative purpose for not sharing that information, and I can’t think of a circumstance that would justify the use of that discretion that is more apt than the one right here,” Belton said. “So it is frustrating. I would say beyond frustrating. I’m frankly angry.”
Belton believes the secrecy around that one piece of the report sullies the entire thing, which is unfortunate, he says, because he’s grateful for the MDHR putting it out.
“What [the report] did, importantly, was justify what has been a community narrative for a very long period of time,” Belton said. “We’ve known of this racist policing on the part of the Minneapolis Police Department for a number of years.”
When the report came out, Interim Police Chief Amelia Huffman gave this statement, which read in part: “We’re committed to providing effective, constitutional police service — the service people across our community want and need and deserve … There is no place in the Minneapolis Police Department for bias or discrimination.”
The city has stopped talks with the MDHR until the online spying allegations are confirmed.
Source: CBS Minnesota
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