MINNEAPOLIS – A lawsuit has been filed against the Minneapolis Police Department by the Minneapolis branch of the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People over the department’s social media surveillance practices.
The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday by the University of Minnesota Law School’s Racial Justice Law Clinic and the Law Office of Tim Phillips, is challenging the department’s use of “covert social media accounts” that officers allegedly used to surveil members of the Minneapolis NAACP, according to a press release.
“It is imperative that the City of Minneapolis and the Minneapolis Police Department understand that the surveillance and covert engagement by them was unjust and racist. As a community, we need to see accountability, but further, we are exposing the deeply troubling actions the city has taken in an attempt to halt a movement,” Angela Rose Myers, the former President of the Minneapolis NAACP, said.
The lawsuit comes almost a year after a Minnesota Department of Human Rights report was released that investigated the MPD for potential misconduct. According to the Minneapolis NAACP, “the report concluded that MPD officers used covert social media accounts to surveil the Minneapolis NAACP and its members for a decade without any investigative purpose.”
The lawsuit alleges that officers posed as Black community members in order to interact with, criticize, and harass the members of the NAACP branch so that they could gain access to the organization, according to the release.
“MPD officers also used the accounts to track the activity of Minneapolis NAACP members and push racist stereotypes about Black people,” the NAACP said. “At the same time, MPD similarly tracked another Twin Cities legacy organization that advocates for the rights of Black people — the Urban League — while not tracking white organizations or white supremacist groups.”
The lawsuit alleges that the MPD violated the organization’s First Amendment right to freedom of expression and its Fourteenth Amendment right to be free from racially discriminatory policing.
Cynthia Wilson, the President of the Minneapolis NAACP, shared in the release that the actions of the department are not surprising but disappointing.
“We assumed that our work with MPD on public safety and community matters was being done in good faith. Instead, MPD simultaneously tried to bring us harm. To know MPD surveilled our members is deeply unnerving and upsetting,” Wilson said. “Their actions violated our trust. MPD needs to be held accountable to prevent this from happening to anyone else.”
