Community group wants St. Paul City Council to address police actions
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A community group against police brutality wants the St. Paul City Council to address a recent federal operation in which St. Paul police fired less-lethal munitions into a crowd of protesters.
Members of Communities United Against Police Brutality said they expected council members to address the Nov. 25 incident at last week’s meeting, but that did not happen.
“I do not believe that the St. Paul City Council is serious about this issue at all. I don't believe that they intend to address it in a meaningful way. This is extremely frustrating, because we cannot just hope that this matter is going to go away, because ICE isn't going away,” said Michelle Gross, president of Communities United Against Police Brutality.
St. Paul City Council will meet Wednesday, and discussion of the incident is not on the agenda.
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Three photographers — including an MPR News photojournalist — said they believed St. Paul Police targeted them as members of the media covering the arrests and subsequent protests.
Council members have called for an investigation into police actions that day, including Hwa Jeong Kim, who represents Ward 5 and was at the protest. She said it was pretty clear who the press were.
“It’s hard for me to believe that St. Paul Police, seeing who’s in the crowd, seeing a ton of cameras and press, and then choosing to, you know, cast a fog of tear gas and then start shooting indiscriminately — that there wasn’t a knowledge that press was present,” Kim said.
Gross said the St. Paul Police Department violated its policies on interacting with First Amendment-protected activities.
“People who are not violating the law in any way were pepper sprayed directly in the face, as were the people around them who, again, had not violated any law,” Gross said.
St. Paul Police say a “full review of the department’s response” is underway and said they will be reviewing hundreds of hours of body camera footage as well as footage shared by the public.
Peter Cox contributed to this report.
