When Officer Rod Webber quickly approached the car that Hamza Jeylani was sitting in, the 17-year-old hit record on his cell phone.¹ Moments earlier, Jeylani and three friends were pulled over by the officer after making a U-turn in a church parking lot in South Minneapolis after playing basketball at the local YMCA.² After Jeylani and two friends were ordered out of the car, Webber threatened Jeylani as he handcuffed him.³

“Plain and simple, if you fuck with me,” says Webber on the video, “I’m going to break your legs before you get the chance to run.”⁴ “Can you tell me why I’m being arrested?” asks Jeylani.⁵ “Because I feel like arresting you,” replies Webber.⁶

According to police, the rationale for the March 18, 2015, stop and detention was suspicion that the four young Black teenagers had stolen the car.⁷ But Jeylani rejects this: “The driver had license and insurance, and that was his car.” Complicating matters more, police said the stolen car they were after was a blue Honda Civic. The teenagers, however, were driving a blue Toyota Camry.⁸ But Jeylani believes he knows the real reason for his stop. He and his friends, all four of whom are of Somali descent, were driving while Black. “I felt like that was a racial profile,” he says.⁹

The feeling that the Minneapolis Police Department treats people of color, particularly Black and Native American residents, differently than white Minneapolitans isn’t confined to Jeylani and his friends. It’s pervasive, and now because of new in-depth documentation we can see how broad and systematic it is. In late 2014, the ACLU obtained arrest data from the Minneapolis Police Department for low-level offenses that occurred from January 1, 2012, to September 30, 2014. The data includes information about 96,975 arrests.

The numbers show a startling disparity in the way police enforce low-level offenses, particularly in the neighborhoods within North Minneapolis, South Minneapolis, and the city center where more low-income and minority communities live. Black people in the city are 8.7 times more likely than white people to be arrested for low-level offenses, like trespassing, disorderly conduct, consuming in public, and lurking. Native Americans have it no better. They are 8.6 times more likely to be arrested for low-level offenses than white people. Although the ACLU tried to do a similar analysis for the city’s Latino population, the police did not reliably include the ethnicity of the people arrested in the data officers recorded. Similarly, the ACLU tried to obtain data about officer-initiated suspicious persons stops that did not result in an arrest, but the Department informed the ACLU that it does not systematically collect that data.

"We've become the new South,”¹⁰ warns Anthony Newby, executive director of Neighborhoods Organizing for Change in North Minneapolis. “We've become the new premiere example of how to systematically oppress people of color. And again, it's done through our legal system, and so low-level offenses, as an example, are just one of the many, many ways that Minnesota has perfected the art of suppressing and subjugating people of color."

An arrest, even if it doesn’t end in a conviction, is a restriction on liberty, and its consequences often snowball, especially for poor people of color.¹¹ A low-level arrest, according to District Court Judge Kevin Burke of Hennepin County, which contains Minneapolis, “can end up taking somebody who just got a job at Taco Bell and have him fired because they missed work because they were in jail for driving after a suspension case.”¹²

Once ensnared, the criminal justice system continues to squeeze poor people of color. “Because they missed [work], they’re now behind in their child support,” he says.¹³ “Because they’re behind in their child support, the county attorney’s office will try to hold them in contempt, to hassle them to get them to pay child support. And so it’s really a very ineffective way of dealing with human behavior.”¹⁴

Picking Up the Pieces - Policing in America, a Minneapolis Case Study digs into 33 months of data the ACLU obtained from the police department and explores the who, what, when, where, why, and how of low-level arrests occurring in a city known for its affluence and liberal politics. The report also recommends reforms to begin the process of improving police-community relations and ensuring that all Minneapolitans are policed fairly.

Introduction
NEXT: A City Divided Along Racial Fault Lines
The Next Generation
Minneapolis' Homeless
Counterproductive Policing
Towards More Democratic and Fair Policing in Minneapolis

For a detailed methodology, click here.

The Minneapolis data adds to a growing body of ACLU data analysis that demonstrates law enforcement across the nation are over and inequitably policing communities of color and that police practices are in need of sweeping reform. Reports from New York, Chicago (both this year and last), Newark, Philadelphia, Boston, metropolitan Detroit, and Nebraska all describe police departments that reserve their most aggressive enforcement for people of color.

From the outside, the experience of communities of color in Minneapolis — across nearly every facet of life — is hidden behind the widespread prosperity of white residents. A majority of the city’s residents are well-educated, and the median income is high,¹⁸ as Minneapolis has weathered the deindustrialization that gutted Rust Belt neighbors like St. Louis and Milwaukee. This is reflected in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area’s unemployment rate, which is the nation’s fifth lowest for a metropolitan area over one million people at 4.0 percent.¹⁹

This story of opportunity and prosperity, however, doesn’t include Minneapolis’ communities of color. Black Minneapolitans are 2.8 times more likely to be unemployed than the city’s white residents. Though there is no city-level information for Native American unemployment compared to white residents,²⁰ there is a 23.9 point difference in unemployment between the two racial groups in the state of Minnesota, the nation’s third worst.²¹

The wealth gap has also led to residential segregation, as poor people of color crowd into a few neighborhoods within North and South Minneapolis and the city center. This concentrated poverty leads to educational segregation as well, with white students enjoying dramatically better educational opportunities than students of color. For example, only 10 percent of white students attend “high-poverty” schools, defined as having more than three-quarters of its students eligible for free or reduced-price meals, while 62 percent of Black students do so.²²

In Picking Up the Pieces, the ACLU demonstrates how racial inequalities in the city extend to the way police enforce low-level offenses, which only increases the feelings of alienation many Minneapolitans of color have towards state and local government more generally. Police-civilian interactions are “most people’s front-line experience with the government,” says Newby.²³ “And when that’s … consistently negative it informs people’s everyday experience and generally makes people withdraw from wanting anything to do with politics or political power.”²⁴

Who Gets Arrested for Low Level Offenses in Minneapolis? 

During the 33 months that this study covers, the Minneapolis Police Department made 96,975 low-level arrests. That’s almost 100 low-level arrests per day. Overall, Black people were 8.7 times more likely to be arrested for a low-level offense than white people, and Native Americans were 8.6 times more likely to be arrested for a low-level offense than white people.

A “low-level” offense means that the maximum sentence someone can receive, if convicted, is one year or less behind bars and/or a fine of $3000.²⁵ For some of these offenses, the maximum sentence is not more than 90 days in jail and/or a fine of not more than $1,000.²⁶ Some of these offenses do not result in any jail time after conviction and are only punishable by a fine.²⁷ The data does not include incidents where a felony was charged in addition to a low-level offense.

The pie charts to the right are based on the average annual number of low-level arrests by race for 2012, 2013, and 2014. The first chart shows that the average annual number of white low-level arrests was 8,069. This means that if no white person was arrested for a low-level offense more than once over the course of one year, 3 percent of the white population would have been picked up for a low-level offense.

Using the same process, we can see that the average annual number of Black low-level arrests was 20,543. This means that in one year, 28 percent of the Black population could have been picked up for a low-level offense. This is a staggering difference. Native American numbers only further prove the point that people of color are disproportionately arrested for low-level offenses, with an annual average of 2,163 arrests, which means that over the course of one year, 27 percent of Native Americans could have been picked up for a low-level offense.

“It’s not in line with what’s happening in other parts of the city,” says Newby.²⁸

These disparities become more disconcerting when you take into account the racial makeup of Minneapolis and compare with who was arrested for low-level offenses from January 1, 2012, to September 30, 2014. White people make up 64 percent of the city's population but only 23 percent of low-level arrests. Black people make up only 19 percent of the city's population but accounted for 59 percent of the low-level arrests, the majority of which are clustered in predominantly Black neighborhoods in North and South Minneapolis that surround the city center. This disparity contributes to longstanding mistrust between communities of color and the Minneapolis Police Department.

Based on his 31 years of experience, Judge Burke says, "the time has come where you say, you know, we cannot afford to continue to have large numbers of people, principally people of color, ending up in jail on little offenses that really end up breeding distrust for their law enforcement and the justice system."²⁹

Racial Disparities and Unequal Policing 

Each dot on the graphic represents a low-level charge. The first scatter plot graphically demonstrates a hypothetical Minneapolis where there are no racial disparities in the police department’s low-level charging practices. The second scatter plot shows the racial disparities that actually do exist, and they are far from ideal.

The red highlighted data point on the far right side of the second chart shows that Blacks were over 25 times more likely to be arrested for loitering with intent to commit a narcotics offense, and this offense was charged just under 4,000 times during the 33 month period.  To be charged with this offense you do not need to have narcotics in your possession.  Since it doesn’t require concrete evidence, this offense gives police officers significant leeway to arrest people who may have done nothing wrong and who are just hanging out. “Police will say it’s loitering or lurking,” says Newby.³⁰

The other highlighted data point on the same chart shows that over the same time period, Blacks were over 5 times more likely to be arrested for no proof of auto insurance, and this offense was charged just over 12,000 times. The disparity here is particularly noteworthy since patrol officers could not possibly know whether or not drivers had proof of insurance when they pulled them over. The data analyzed doesn’t include what the initial reason was for the stop. It’s clear that for many offenses communities of color were charged at vastly higher rates for low-level offenses than white people.

Out of the offenses that were charged 100 or more times in the 33-month time period the ACLU analyzed, there were only three charges that had no Black/white racial disparity — possession of injection equipment, unauthorized beach swimming, and dog leash/cleanup violations. The offenses with 100 or more occurrences that had the highest disparities were violations of the city’s taxicab ordinance (57 times more likely*), loitering with intent to commit a narcotics offense (26 times more likely), excess sound from a motor vehicle (23 times more likely), truancy (20 times more likely), and contempt of court (20 times more likely).

*Please note: Taxi drivers in Minneapolis are predominantly of Somali descent. This may account for the dramatic disparity documented here. For more details, please refer to this Washington Post article.

Disparities Impact Native Americans, Too 

The picture is just as bleak when we look at disparities for the Native American population. The first graph shows a hypothetical Minneapolis where there are no racial disparities in the police department’s low-level charging practices for Native Americans.

The lower graph reflects the police department’s disproportionate arrest rates of Native Americans for low-level offenses when compared with white people. The green data point on the right of the same graph represents that Native Americans were over 23 times more likely to be arrested for trespassing, and this offense was charged just over 4,000 times during the 33-month period. The blue highlighted data point shows that over the same time period, Native Americans were over 6 times more likely to be arrested for disorderly conduct, and this offense was charged just under 4,000 times.

During our time period, out of the offenses that were charged 100 or more times, there were only two that had no Native American/white racial disparity — refusing a drug or alcohol test and dog leash/cleanup violations. The offenses with 100 or more occurrences that had the highest disparities were public consumption (24 times more likely), false name (24 times more likely), trespassing (24 times more likely), contempt of court (23 times more likely), and outstanding warrant for a low-level offense (23 times more likely).

In the 33 months’ worth of data the ACLU analyzed, the Minneapolis Police Department made 8,094 arrests of young people for low-level offenses — that's about eight low-level arrests of young people per day. After crunching the numbers, the ACLU found that Black youth in Minneapolis are 5.8 times more likely to be arrested for a low-level offense than white youth. The disparity is even worse for Native American youth, who are more than 7.7 times more likely to be arrested for low-level offenses than white youth.

Minneapolis youth of color know they are treated differently than their white counterparts. Faysal Mohamed, a friend of Jeylani who was in the car when Officer Webber pulled them over, has been stopped and detained by the police multiple times. “Before … I never minded the police,” he says, “but now I have to watch my back because the police are targeting me and targeting people like me.”³¹

If the people of Minneapolis, particularly its police leaders and public policy makers, are going to repair the lack of trust between communities of color and the police through smart reforms, they need to look to the next generation. But that will prove difficult, if not impossible, if police continue to over-police young people of color and poison their perceptions of people in positions of authority.

“If you have one bad experience here, why would you want to engage with a state, a federal government, a legal system, where your early interactions have been not only negative, but traumatizing?” asks Newby.³² “So I think it does have an impact on a whole range of behaviors that start as children and follow us through our adult life.”³³

Which Young People are Getting Arrested?

The graphic on the right shows the racial makeup of Minneapolis’ youth combined with the raw data of youth arrests for low-level offenses in the city from January 1, 2012, to September 30, 2014. Much like the statistics for all low-level arrests, the racial disparities for young people are also stark.

White youth make up 40 percent of the city's juvenile population but only 14 percent of youth low-level arrests. Black youth, on the other hand, make up 30 percent of the city's juvenile population but accounted for 60 percent of the youth low-level arrests. Native American youth make up 3 percent of the juvenile population and 8 percent of the youth arrests.

The locations of these youth arrests follow a similar pattern as all low-level arrests and are geographically concentrated in certain neighborhoods of North and South Minneapolis and the city center. The greater the Black population in the area, as the map on the right shows, the more youth arrested for low-level offenses.

Which Young People are Being Criminalized?

Forty percent of all low-level charges against young people were for curfew violation. The next most common charge was property theft valued at less than $1000, which comprised only 6 percent of the total charges against young people. Following that, the most common low-level charges were running away, attempting to cause bodily harm, disorderly conduct, truancy, outstanding warrant for a low-level offense, trespassing, no valid driver's license, and consumption of liquor by a minor. These 10 offenses accounted for 74 percent of all low-level charges against youth.

The data analyzed here indicates that the city's poorest and most vulnerable residents — those who experience homelessness — struggle not just with access to housing but also with arrests for low-level offenses.

Between January 1, 2012, and September 30, 2014, the Minneapolis Police Department arrested people experiencing homelessness over 6,000 times for low-level offenses. Almost half the time, as the graphic on the right shows, the same person was arrested more than once. In an extreme example, one homeless person was arrested 22 times. 

Judge Burke believes the criminal justice system is ill-equipped to deal with the mental health issues affecting many of the city’s homeless people. With jail much more likely to exacerbate mental illness than cure it, he argues that “We need to do something radically different – public policy has to change."³⁹

Age, Race, and Homelessness

During the study period, the Minneapolis Police Department arrested people experiencing homelessness 6,006 times for low-level offenses. As the graphic to the right shows, 58 percent of these low-level arrests were of Black people experiencing homelessness. These arrests are contributing to the overall disproportionate impact that low-level policing has had on communities of color in Minneapolis.

This graphic shows the age distribution of homeless people who were arrested. Forty-seven percent of the homeless arrests between January 1, 2012 and September 30, 2014 were of people 45 and older. Research shows that the frequency of criminal behavior drops off dramatically as people age.⁴⁰ For the population of people experiencing homelessness in Minneapolis — particularly the older folks who are less likely to engage in dangerous criminal activity — the city should focus on reintegrating these abandoned members of the community by expanding the social services already in place.

"We need to be more proactive about addressing root-level causes of poverty and homelessness, which are contributing to the problem," says Nekima Levy-Pounds, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas and a civil rights attorney.⁴¹

Criminalizing Poverty

Over one third of the low-level charges against people experiencing homelessness during the study period were for consuming alcohol in public and open alcohol bottles. The remaining 10 most common low-level charges against homeless arrestees were an outstanding warrant for a low-level offense, trespassing, loitering with intent to commit a narcotics offense, disorderly conduct, theft, drug paraphernalia, begging/panhandling, and public urination. Together, these 10 charges account for 80 percent of the low-level charges against people experiencing homelessness during the study period.

In addition, at least 40 percent of the low-level charges against people experiencing homelessness were for offenses that are inextricably related to not having a home — consuming in public, open bottle, begging/panhandling, and public urination. Arresting homeless people for these offenses is simply criminalizing poverty. Minneapolis should focus on diverting these folks away from the criminal justice system and into the services they need to get back on their feet.

For example, the National Alliance to End Homelessness reports that, “Studies have shown that — in practice, and not just in theory — providing people experiencing chronic homelessness with permanent supportive housing saves taxpayers money.”

In poor and minority neighborhoods of Minneapolis, the police aren’t seen as guardians who serve and protect. Rather, police officers are viewed suspiciously as oppressors who harass and arrest. “We have major challenges between the Minneapolis Police Department and communities of color,” says Professor Levy-Pounds.⁴² “Part of the challenge has to do with the levels of over-policing, particularly on the north side of Minneapolis.”⁴³

For instance, some officers police low-level offenses far more aggressively than others. As the graphic to the right illustrates, a small number of officers made an outsized number of low-level arrests between January 1, 2012, and September 30, 2014. Eight officers made more than 1,000 arrests during this period. The officer who made the most low-level arrests racked up 2,026. The subsequent seven officers made between 1,001 and 1,128 low-level arrests. As the map below shows, a huge portion of these officers’ arrests occurred in North Minneapolis.

These eight officers’ arrests for low-level offenses are far above the norm for the department. The mean number of arrests per officer during the study time period was 127. The median number of arrests per officer was 51.

Despite these huge differences in low-level arresting practices between officers, racial disparities persist throughout the department. Even when the arrests of the top eight arresting officers are dropped from the data, significant racial disparities remain. Without these top eight arresting officers, Black people were 8.5 times more likely to be arrested for a low-level offense than white people, and Native Americans were 9.1 times more likely to be arrested for a low-level offense than white people.

Who Gets Booked?

In Minnesota, Criminal Procedure Rule 6 creates a presumption that when a police officer arrests someone without a warrant for a misdemeanor offense, like disorderly conduct, the officer should not book the person unless it reasonably appears that a) the person must be detained to prevent bodily injury to that person or another, b) further criminal conduct will occur, or c) a substantial likelihood exists that the person will not respond to a citation.⁴⁴ Booking means that a person is taken to jail as opposed to being cited and released from police custody.

For gross misdemeanors, such as giving false information to law enforcement or contempt of court, officers are allowed to cite and release a suspect if none of the three circumstances above exist.⁴⁵ For low-level offenses that are not punishable by incarceration, such as obstructing a sidewalk, officers are required to cite and release suspects.⁴⁶

The graphic on the upper right shows that for officers who made 50 or more low-level arrests during the study period, booking percentage varied widely. The mean booking percentage was 32.1 percent, while the median booking percentage was 31.6 percent. One officer who made 50 arrests or more booked 86.5 percent of arrestees. Another 59 officers who made 50 arrests or more booked arrestees over 50 percent of the time.

This graphic illustrates that although Black people were arrested for low-level offenses at far higher rates than white people, of those who were arrested, there was not a significant difference in how frequently police officers booked Black arrestees and white arrestees. It’s one data point where the police treatment of white and Black people in Minneapolis was relatively the same. White low-level arrestees were booked 29 percent of the time and cited and released 68 percent of the time, while Black low-level arrestees were booked 27 percent of the time and cited and released 68 percent of the time.

Native Americans, however, fared worse than either white or Black arrestees. Native American low-level arrestees were booked 39 percent of the time and cited and released 54 percent of the time.

Too Many Arrests for Missteps?

The data set analyzed here includes information about 198 specific low-level offenses. The ACLU categorized 70 percent of the low-level charges as “administrative/non-active driving,” “quality of life,” “drug,” and “status” offenses. These include offenses like expired boat registration, no proof of car insurance, selling liquor without a license, littering, disorderly conduct, consuming in public, interfering with pedestrian traffic, loitering with intent to commit a narcotics offense, drug paraphernalia, truancy, and curfew violations.  For a list of the offenses the ACLU grouped into these categories, consult the footnotes.⁴⁷

The map to the right compares the percentage of Black residents in Minneapolis neighborhoods with the locations of quality of life arrests made during the period of this analysis. Once again, the arrests are concentrated in the predominantly Black areas of North and South Minneapolis and the city center.

Judge Burke explains how the criminal justice system treats different types of people unequally: "We take people — largely people of color — and we say, 'If you're drunk or sleeping on the light rail to the Mall of America, we will charge you and make a condition of your probation [that] you cannot ride the light rail.”⁴⁸

He observes, however, that the criminal justice system doesn’t extend this logic to the wealthier people of Hennepin County’s suburbs. “If you're rich and you're coming from Wayzata and you drive 90 miles an hour down 35W, we don't say, 'You can't drive on the freeway anymore', because you're rich and you're white and you've got a Mercedes.”⁴⁹

This disparity of treatment is systemic in nature. “It's the whole system,” he says, “that just is kind of topsy-turvy when it comes to poor people who are people of color."⁵⁰ The result: Poor Minneapolitans of color pay more dearly for the mistakes they make than more affluent white citizens do.

Who Gets Arrested on Low-Level Warrants?

Low-level warrants are issued because people have failed in some way to follow up on a previous citation or arrest for a low-level offense. For example, they may have missed a court appearance or a deadline to either challenge the citation or pay the fine.

Low-level warrants — which include warrants for petty misdemeanors, misdemeanors, gross misdemeanors, and status offenses — were the third most common low-level charge in the data set. (Status offenses are actions that are only prohibited for young people). Nearly 85 percent of those warrants were for misdemeanors, 14.7 percent were for gross misdemeanors, and less than one percent were for petty misdemeanors and status offenses.

But the department was unable to provide any more information about the specific low-level offenses for which these warrants were issued.  The charts to the right show that of those people arrested for a low-level warrant during the study period, 62 percent were Black and 94.6 percent were booked.

Illegal Arrests?

In 33 months, the police department made 906 low-level arrests that it categorized under an offense called “doesnt fit any crim[e].” Seventy two percent of the people arrested under this category were Black.

According to the department, this categorization is the result of limitations in its computer system and not an indication that these 906 arrests were made without legal justification. Given the information made available to the ACLU, there is no way to verify the department’s explanation. The ACLU therefore remains concerned about the legality of these arrests in particular, especially in light of their racially disparate impact. The department should immediately open an investigation into these arrests.

A Problem That Can No Longer be Ignored

The Minneapolis Police Department’s own data speaks for itself: to be a person of color in the city is to be over-policed, with law enforcement aggressively arresting people for low-level offenses. The damage in turn is twofold: police-community relations are destroyed and public safety suffers.