Report: At least 24 people killed in Minnesota due to intimate partner violence in 2024

NINA MOINI: This morning, a statewide coalition working to stop domestic violence released its annual homicide report. It lists 24 people who were killed last year due to intimate partner abuse in Minnesota and three others whose deaths are listed as suspicious. Joining me now to talk more about what these cases reveal about intimate partner violence is Nikki Engel. She's the interim Co-Executive Director of Violence Free Minnesota. The group has published a version of this report every year since 1989.

Thanks so much for being with us this afternoon, Nikki.

NIKKI ENGEL: Thanks for having me, Nina.

NINA MOINI: Before we dive in to some of the numbers here, we just wanted to make sure to take a moment to acknowledge the people that are being remembered here, these 24 lives. And I wondered if there were maybe just a couple of people that you or a couple of cases or incidents that you wanted to highlight for us?

NIKKI ENGEL: Yeah, thank you for this opportunity. You know, myself and my staff, we hold all of these stories every year. But the one, if I was going to highlight one today, one that really sticks out in my mind is the story of Amir Demarion Harden, who was only eight when he was shot in his Burnsville home by his father. His father was attempting to shoot and kill Amir's mother when Amir intervened and tried to wrestle the gun away from his father, and was shot in the process.

Amir's four siblings were also present in the home and witnessed this event. Amir's mother had filed charges against Amir's father. He had strangled her earlier that year. And he was actually released on bail only seven hours before this incident, where Amir was shot and killed.

NINA MOINI: So many stories and-- oh, I think I hear a little bit of an echo there. Oh, I think it's gone. You know, what was striking to me in this instance with Amir and from the report, which says that of the 24 people killed due to intimate partner violence this year, 11 of them were actually counted as bystanders and interveners, can you talk about what that means? It sounds like that was the case with Amir.

NIKKI ENGEL: Yeah, absolutely. So since our start of this report, we've tracked other individuals who are killed in a domestic violence incident, so bystanders can be children. They can be other people in the home or on the street where the violence happens. And then interveners are those who were actively engaged in trying to intervene and stopping the violence at the time. And so this past year, 2024, we saw 11 killed, as you mentioned. That matches what we saw in 2023 and in 1999.

I think, for us, our biggest takeaways from these numbers that we want to really highlight and bring forward is that the combination of firearms and domestic violence is just incredibly dangerous, both for victims and their family members and their children, but also for anyone else who is around what is happening, right? That can be neighbors, community members, as well as the folks who are called to respond in these crisis incidents, like law enforcement, like EMTs.

The other thing that we really want to highlight from this information is the message that intimate partner violence is a public health issue. Its impact is immense. It doesn't just touch on the lives of the victim and their families, but church communities, school settings, the public, right? We are all a part-- we all are at risk from the presence of intimate partner violence in our communities.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. And this year, I understand, you created a new category that we talked about in the introduction for suspicious deaths, that have not been officially confirmed as intimate partner homicide. Can you talk more about the decision to do that? Why that was important?

NIKKI ENGEL: Yeah, absolutely. So Violence Free Minnesota, we've always tracked deaths where the circumstances of that death suggest that there's a likely connection to domestic violence, as either the sole or a contributing factor to that death. But up till now, we have kept that tracking private and internal, and we've only included in our counts, those where domestic violence has been officially determined to be the sole or contributing factor to the death.

We made the decision to start engaging with these deaths more publicly in 2023, really as a direct result of the Allison Lussier case. So Allison was a Native woman, who was found dead in her apartment in the city of Minneapolis. Allison's partner had a long, severe, and documented history of domestic violence against her and other women.

And since Allison's death, Allison's family has done an immense amount of work to bring public attention to her death and the problematic police response that happened after she was found dead in her apartment. The case is currently being audited by the Minneapolis city auditor, and Violence Free Minnesota will continue to follow the case. It's possible that, at some point, there will be-- her death will be confirmed to be due to domestic violence, and we will move it into that category.

But Allison's death, in connection with the really important and groundbreaking work of the missing and murdered offices in our state, really uplifting what you folks might also see in the news or in the media referred to as hidden homicides. We really think there's a need to raise awareness about how many deaths possibly have a connection to intimate partner violence, but just will never, for reasons that are broad, including, sometimes, reasons of racism and bias, reasons why we might never have solid confirmation that, that death is a result of domestic violence, but there is a connection there.

NINA MOINI: I also want to talk about the recommendations and what happens, or what you hope comes from, when you all are collecting this report every year since 1989. Where do you hope that information goes, and what were maybe a few of the key recommendations that you pulled out?

NIKKI ENGEL: Absolutely. Thanks for that question. We didn't always include recommendations in our early report. It was a very intentional shift in our work to start including really tangible policy and practice changes that we believe could reduce or eliminate intimate partner violence homicide in our state.

So in our earliest years of providing recommendations, we really focused on the criminal justice system. And over the past few years, we've brought in that, because thinking about intimate partner violence as a public health crisis, as a public health issue, there is a role for many more of our systems and institutions to play in identifying intimate partner violence, connecting victims to supportive resources in their communities, and intervening and interrupting that violence. So if you look at our recommendations now, you will see that we have recommendations for healthcare systems, for the media, for church and community spaces. So we really see that there is a role for all of us in ending domestic violence in Minnesota.

A couple of recommendations that I would like to kind of highlight would be that we need robust and sustainable funding for advocacy. Our community-based advocacy programs have been struggling with level or flat funding. And what we know from them is that the needs are not decreasing. The needs of survivors are not decreasing in the state of Minnesota. They are constantly increasing, as well as that costs continue to increase, right? All of our costs for doing the work have increased. Whether that's healthcare for our own staff, or the costs of products, or the costs of food for shelters, all of these costs are increasing, but our funding has not increased to meet those needs.

We also really think we would love to see robust funding for prevention. So much of the work of responding to intimate partner violence happens in reaction or response to violence that's already happened. We really need to see robust funding for prevention efforts in the arena of intimate partner violence, as well as in education settings, workplaces. But also, prevention is also about working with those who commit harm, those who use abuse and violence. Ultimately, if we don't transform the behaviors of those individuals, there's always going to be another victim. So we need the state to invest in that kind of programming.

NINA MOINI: And Nikki, before I let you go, I do want to just remind folks that these numbers are for 2024. And given that we're so far into 2025 now, and given that it's hard to-- every year is an individual year, it's hard to draw trends, perhaps, out of it. But how has this year been so far, 2025, just from what you've gathered so far?

NIKKI ENGEL: We're currently at eight confirmed intimate partner homicides for 2025. And we always say, "at least," because there are homicides that--

NINA MOINI: Can you repeat that? I'm so sorry, you cut out for a second. Just repeat the number again.

NIKKI ENGEL: Oh, I'm sorry, 18. OK, we're 18 confirmed. So we know that there are always more than that. We always say "at least." But that is where we're at for 2025.

NINA MOINI: All right, Nikki, thank you so much for coming by Minnesota Now and sharing the report with us. Really appreciate your time.

NIKKI ENGEL: Thank you so much, Nina.

NINA MOINI: Nikki Engel is the interim Co-Executive Director of Violence Free Minnesota. If you or someone you is in a dangerous situation with a partner, there is a 24-hour statewide domestic and sexual violence hotline. You can call Minnesota Day One at 866-223-1111, or text 612-399-9995. We'll have that information at mprnews.org, as well, when you click on this story.