Good afternoon and welcome to the regular meeting of the Committee of the Whole for May 5th, 2026. My name is Areen Choudry and I'm the chair of this committee. I'll call this meeting to order and ask the clerk to call the roll to verify the presence of a quorum. Councilmember Payne Present. Wansley Present. Rainville Present. Vito Present. Warren Present. Osman is absent. Schaefer Present. Stevenson Present. Chavez Present. Wade Present. Tomasino Present. Vice Chair Chughtai is absent and Chair Choudry. Let the record reflect that we have a quorum. Before we begin the meeting, let me offer a friendly reminder to everyone that these meetings are broadcast live to enable greater public participation. The broadcast include real-time captioning to increase accessibility for the entire community. So, it's important that all speakers be mindful of the rate of their speech so that our captioners can fully capture and transcribe all comments for the broadcast. We ask all speakers to please moderate the speed and clarity of their comments. Colleagues, our agenda is in front of us. We will begin with the reports of our standing committees first, consent next, and then we will begin the public hearing. Are there any questions about the order or amendments to make? Council President Payne Thank you, Chair Choudry. I'd like to move to add to the agenda gift acceptance for local progress convening for federal deployment in Los Angeles for myself. Is there a second? Second. Excellent. That's been moved and seconded. With that, may I have a motion to adopt the agenda as amended or are there any other amendments? >> I'm sorry. Could you ask him to repeat what he said cuz I we couldn't hear him down there. Yes, of course, Councilmember Warren. Council President Payne, could you repeat uh your motion? >> Yes, it's a motion to accept uh gift for travel and lodging for the Local Progress uh federal deployment convening in Los Angeles. Excellent. All right. So, that motion is before us. It's been seconded. Um and then Councilmember Chavez. Uh Thank you, Chair Chaudhary. I'd like to amend the agenda to add under the consent component recognizing the historical significance of Día de la Batalla de Puebla, the Mexican holiday of Cinco de Mayo. Today is Cinco de Mayo. This is uh an important holiday, especially for those from Puebla, Mexico, where my family is from. Excellent. Second. Awesome. If there's no objection, we'll just take that up both of those together as one amendment. Um with that, may I have a motion to adopt the agenda as amended? So, moved. Second. Excellent. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed say nay. That motion carries. Now, we'll begin with the stand the reports of our standing committees. The first is the Enterprise and Labor Relations Committee chaired by Councilmember Paul Massano. And are you giving the report today? Madam Chair, um Councilmember Whiting chaired that committee meeting this cycle, so I'm going to ask him to complete the report. Go ahead, Councilmember. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh the ELR Committee has four items to bring forward to the body today. Um number one is a passage of a resolution amending the designation of polling locations for 2026. Number two is a contract amendment with Guidehouse Inc. to conduct comparable jurisdiction research. Number three is a legal settlement for workers compensation claim for Rita Juron. And number four is a gift acceptance from Bloomberg Philanthropies and the project on municipal innovation. Uh the ELR chair Paul Mesano and myself will stand for questions. Members, are there any questions? All right, seeing no one in queue, we will move next to the report of the Business Housing and Zoning Committee given by its chair, Chair Osman. Thank you, Madam Chair. The BIS Committee will be bringing 12 items to the full council on Thursday. Item one approves three liquor license. Item two approves 26 license renewals. Item three approves two gambling license. Item four approves two gambling license renewals. Item five approves amended guideline for the vibrant storefront initiatives. Item six authorizes a master contract for public art managers. Item seven accepts a bid from carpet replacement at Minneapolis Convention Center. Item eight authorizes a contract amendment for the Minneapolis Convention Center project beats a project. Item nine authorizes a contract amend amendment with Meet Minneapolis. Item 10 approves a street renaming in honor of Officer Jamal Mitchell to Blaisdell Avenue. Item 11 authorizes an updated agreement with Call Center Call Center. And lastly, item 12 is the John Cook House appeal. This item was sent forward without recommendation. With that, I will stand for any questions. Thank you. Members, are there any questions for this report? Okay, seeing no one in queue, we will go to the next report of the Climate and Infrastructure Committee given by its chair, Chair Warsame. Thank you, Chair Warsame. The Climate and Infrastructure Committee has eight items to bring forward. The first is resolutions related to the project approval and assessment of the 27th Avenue Northeast Resurfacing Project. Number two is resolutions related for the project approval assessment in area way abandonment for the University Avenue Southeast and 4th Street Southeast Reconstruction Project. Number three is accepting a Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Planning Grant for North Minneapolis Flood Mitigation Projects Feasibility Evaluation. Four is accepting a Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Planning Grant for East Minneapolis Flood Mitigation Projects Feasibility Evaluation. Five is resolution related to gift acceptance from the National Association of City Transportation Officials. Six is accepting a low bid for a 26th Street East and Hiawatha Avenue Safety Improvement Project. Number seven is accepting a low bid for Whittier Safe Routes to School Phase Two Project and eight is accepting a low bid for the construction of the Nicollet Avenue Irrigation System and with that I will stand for any questions. Thank you, Council Member. I am not seeing anyone in queue for questions, so then we can move to the next report of the Public Health and Safety Equity Committee given by its chair, Chair Chavez. Thank you, Chair Warsame. The Public Health, Safety, and Equity Committee will be bringing forward seven items. Item number one authorizes contract amendments with various vendors to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Item number two approves a high density drug trafficking areas program grant for regional drug threats. Item number three is a gift acceptance for the Big Cities Health Coalition. Item number four is a gift acceptance from the Pennsylvania Carey Law School. Item number five approves of Jones as first responders pilot program legislative directive. Item six authorizes a contract with Restorative Justice Community Action for restorative justice program services. Item number seven authorizes a joint powers agreement with Hennepin County for provision of social worker services. I'll stand for any questions on these items. Thank you, Council member. I am not seeing anyone in queue for any questions, so we will move to the Budget Committee report given by its vice chair, Council member Scheper. Thank you, Madam Chair Chowdhry. The Budget Committee will be bringing forward two items. Item one approves the 2026 Consolidated Action Plan budget adjustments. Item number two amends the 2026 General Appropriations resolution to roll over unspent 2025 appropriations. I'll stand for questions on these items. Right, members, are there any questions on this final report? Okay, we are not seeing any. So, with that, we will next take up the consent agenda. There is one item on the consent agenda to start with and we'll also add the two gift acceptances that were amended from the beginning of the agenda. Um first is a resolution expressing support for the study for a new passenger rail services or corridors to the Twin Cities. And then, the second and third items were presented by um Council President gift acceptance for travel. And then, the other was the resolution um Council member Chavez brought forward for Cinco de Mayo. Um there should be printed copies of RCAs for members that need them. Is there any discussion from members on the consent agenda? Okay, we're just keeping it moving. Seeing no further discussion, I will move the consent agenda for approval. Is there a second? >> Second. Excellent. On that motion, all those in favor say I. I. Those opposed say nay. That motion carries. Okay, members. Now we will have our public hearing on an ordinance um related to firearms regulations. Um myself, Council Member Palmisano, Council Member Wading, and Council Member Chavez are authoring this ordinance, and we will be doing a brief presentation about the ordinance before we go into our public hearing. And I'll just give us a little bit of time for um my policy aid to get us queued up and ready to go. While she does that, I will just give some opening remarks. Um I had uh a number of remarks written down um but taking the time to write them was so difficult and took me back to a tough place that we all were in, um especially those that were on the council during um the mass shooting that happened at Annunciation, um the mass shooting the day before at right outside of Cristo Rey Jesuit High School that put students in lockdown and then following that a number of other shootings that occurred on the south side of Minneapolis. I also know that for members up here on the dais, we all have intimate experiences with gun violence. Um it's something that has touched all of our wards and all of our constituents and then we are just extremely united uh as a city to do everything we can to reduce the harm of gun violence and ultimately end it in our communities. It is a true public health epidemic. Um and I just want to take a moment of silence for all of the families victims of gun violence who have lost their lives and everyone in our city that has been impacted. All right, thank you everybody. Is your presentation ready? Okay. Excellent. Um so I'm going to be presenting this ordinance with attorney Amy Schutt. We have worked really hand-in-hand to ensure that uh this is ready to go and achieves all of the goals that we have in our efforts to reduce gun violence in the city of Minneapolis and push the state legislature um to bring forward um common-sense gun control. Um I want to just first start off by thanking every single person from our community that is here in our chambers and community members that are watching right now. I want to thank the Annunciation community, Annunciation Light, Moms Demand Action, Protect Minnesota, all the advocates from the north side to the south side that have really been a part of this work not just this last year, but really for the long haul and I want to congratulate them on the huge sweeping victory that they got at the state Senate. Very historical to to get a bill passed that addresses a ban on assault weapons, a ban on binary triggers, a ban on ghost guns that are undetectable, safe storage. That was something that was supported by a Republican legislator and brought it forward. I think Senator Warren Limmer. And now we as a Minneapolis community, there are parts of this ordinance that um Attorney Shelt will go through that will go into effect immediately and then there are parts that require the state legislature um to move with their feet and take action so that we can have the authority as a city of Minneapolis to enact those policies and we have a big week coming up because the bill is now going to be heard in the house and we are saying that Minneapolis is united in seeing this legislation pass and we will be watching to see who is a barrier in ensuring that we keep our community safer. And we also know I I've heard it from the advocates that this policy isn't going to end gun violence. What we are literally asking for is just a basic so we can reduce the harm which is the bare minimum. We deserve so, so much more. Um and then I will have Amy go to the next slide. And then Attorney Schutt, if you want to just take it away to kind of explain the next few slides and what um this section and effective date means. Thank you, Chair Choudry. My name is Amy Schutt. I'm a lead assistant city attorney in the city attorney's office and I'm happy to be here with you today. So, as the chair mentioned, um this ordinance is a full rewrite of chapter 393 of your code of ordinances. So, it replaces in its entirety what is currently in chapter 393. The first parts of this ordinance, um if they were passed, are what we're calling not contingent. So, they take place immediately um 30 days after passage and publication. These sections include 393.10, state regulations incorporated, 393.20, a severability section. And then 393.30, definitions. Within these first sections that are taking place um immediately upon passage and publication in that 30 days, um our intention was to rewrite these in a way that clarified uh what was taking place. It's largely clarification of what you had in your original ordinance. And we also moved all of these sections that are non-contingent up to the first sections of your ordinance. You'll note in the definition section that um first, we are relying on state statute for definitions. We do make reference in subdivision A to the state statute that regulates gun control. So, um where possible, we do want to defer to those definitions in the state statute and sure that our definitions are aligned. However, we do also have a subsection B of the definitions where we've included our own definitions. Um, in some cases these definitions aren't provided in state statute. In some cases they're not provided yet in state statute, um, but we've taken them from proposed legislation. Um, and in some cases they're provided in another section of state statute that's not the primary one listed in subdivision A. So, on this first slide you'll see, um, on these slides you'll see the definitions that, um, are um, substantial definitions related to this statute. And members, um, and the public, you'll see as we go through, uh, the ordinance, all of these definitions are touched on in different places and there's a lot of different definitions and provisions, um, in the presentation today, uh, we won't highlight, I won't highlight every single one individually. Attorney Shut will certainly go through them, but there will be some places that I want to just note for you and note for the public, so we can move to the next slide. And it is also important to note that while we do have contingent sections of the statute, which we'll discuss later, the definitions related to those contingent sections are in this definition section. They will take effect immediately. It needed to be structured that way so that, um, we could have a definition section that takes effect immediately, but the practical implication of that will mean that there are some definitions in this definition section that don't refer to anything unless and until those contingent sections take effect. So, additional sections that are non-contingent that will take effect 30 days after passage in public publication are the violation section, the section on collector show permits, and then restrictions on possession, conveyance, and display of non-firearm weapons and fast simile firearms, and the discharge of firearms. And again, these are all sections that were in your original language or in your original ordinance. We have cleaned up and solidified that language in these first seven sections. So, then we move on to the sections which are contingent. And by contingent, what that means is that these sections of the ordinance will not go into effect right away. They will only go into effect if there is a state law that changes allowing us to pass them. As I think you all are aware, there is a number of state statutes related to preemption of regulation of firearms, and those are still in place. And so, unless and until those statutes are repealed or a new or state statute is passed that allows us specifically to regulate firearms, these sections will not go into effect. And then, I will just note for members and members of the public, this is on our legislative information website where you can see the full ordinance. In the back, very end of it, you see a list of different effective dates and number of statutes for the ones that are contingent that they are tied to. And each one specifies that there either needs to be an amendment or a repeal, and then full authority given to the city of Minneapolis to enact regulations. So, it has really taken up the tact that like do the job, state legislature to enact statewide policy change on these areas, and if you're not going to do it, give the city of Minneapolis authority to do do And as we have future discussions, I think there is something to say about us starting here because as the largest city in the city of Minneapolis as a urban core, it's really important um that we are able to tailor policies to the needs of our communities and that's why every year when we go to the state legislature, we have a stated position of fighting for local control. So, these sections that are contingent include a prohibition on assault weapons, a prohibition on large capacity magazines, a prohibition on binary triggers, a prohibition on ghost guns. And you can see um then we get into regulations of firearms that are very similar to the regulations of non-firearm weapons and facsimile firearms that you will have that will take place more immediately. And then if we can go back one slide, I'd love to highlight a couple of things for you members. Um first, I think the the assault weapons ban, it's we very clearly define it and align it with state it's semi-automatic military style assault weapons. And we're clearly taking a stance of we should not have um this type of high capacity firearm weapons of war on our city streets or anywhere. And then as far as large capacity magazines um go, we know that firearms equipped with high capacity magazines make instances of violence exceptionally deadly. High capacity ammunition magazines commonly defined as those capable of holding more than 10 rounds are a threat to public safety and we're taking the position that it should be prohibited. Um, well, there's a slide that highlights an an amendment change that Council member Widing will be bringing forward where we originally had listed 20 rounds as high capacity, but we are changing it to 10 rounds through the amendment to line up with what is broadly common practice across jurisdictions. There are several states across the the country that have listed high capacity magazines as 10 rounds. Um, essentially saying that the the handguns, pistols, that's the max that should be allowable and that's what's reasonable for what a firearm should be used for. Um, this is also a point of negotiation at the state legislature as well. Um, and then this was something that was directly This amendment change was something that was directly brought to us by uh, advocates to address gun violence and reduce the deadliness of um, shooting instances. And then I'll also highlight binary triggers for um, the public and members. Um, I think it's important that we state what the definition is because it's pretty mind-boggling that this is an allowable use that we currently have. Uh, binary trigger means a device mechanism or part designed or marketed or intended to cause a firearm to discharge one round when the trigger is pulled and to discharge an additional round when the trigger is released. Um, it's also commonly known as two-stage firing devices. So, they're When you have a binary trigger, you are rapidly firing. And again, like in in the hands of the wrong person with the wrong intentions can be very dangerous to our community. Um, and then the last one I'll just quick highlight on this slide is ghost guns. Um, this is a dangerous loophole that exists that um, undermines Minnesota's existing background check laws um, because you can essentially 3D print uh, a firearm which is happening right now and they are unserialized. They don't have a serial code on them and so they will be at uh, the scene of a crime and a police officer or first responder is unable to detect who it belongs to and then also if you're 3D printing and you go through a medical metal detector, it is undetectable. Um, so that is also why that this is a provision we're taking up along with um, legislatures legislators at the capital. We can go to the next slide. Um, Attorney Shut, would you mind just kind of highlighting uh, the prohibition on sensitive places and then public places. Yes. So, um, according to our definition section, sensitive places are defined as city-owned, leased, or controlled building or property that's open to the public for governmental, educational, recreational, cultural, or civic purposes. It does not include parking ramps. And public places uh, again refers to the um, meaning assigned in Minnesota statute that I do not have in front of me right now, but it's a broader definition referring generally to uh, more like public places in general. No worries cuz I have it in front of me. Uh, property owned, leased, or controlled by governmental unit and private property that is regularly and frequently open and made available to the use of of the public in sufficient numbers. And so this is really thinking about um, legislation to prohibit guns in places like we where we are sitting right now, City Hall in our chambers where we conduct business. Um And this is something that has been top of mind at the state legislature, especially following the assassination of Speaker Melissa Horton and her husband and the attempted assassination um of Senator Hoffman. And I know that this is something that's deeply personal for our entire entire community, but especially members of this body, and I think it's really important to highlight how deep it is for us. This goes beyond just a a fight between Republicans and Democrats. This is a non-partisan issue about safety and I and just wanted to highlight the context around that and um you also see that there is a provision around firearm safe storage, which will also um be amended in um and that amendment is before you for your consideration, members. We can go to the next slide. So, as mentioned, um these later sections of the ordinance are contingent and that means that they do require a state law change or multiple state law changes before they can be effective. In the event that those state law change state laws change, we have created um a process by which the public and the council will be made aware that these ordinances are going to go into effect. And so, what will happen there is that if and when those state laws are changed, my office, the city attorney's office, will certify to the city council a notice with along with the notice of the effective date that um any of the given ordinances can go into effect. And that effective date will be 90 days after the certification to the city council. Thank you. And then we can go to the next slide. Um these are some of the amendments for your consideration as well. The one that I highlighted for you previously was around the large capacity magazines defined as 10 rounds instead of 20. And then there are two other definitions related to safe storage around locking device and unintended. Um and that should be before you as well. Um and then we can move to the next slide to just cover the other amendment that is going to be considered today. Again, a state a safe storage provision. Um we felt that it was important to just if we're going to do the firearms regulation, let's really do the firearms regulation piece. And I'm very grateful to Council member Palmisano, Council member Waite, and Council member Chavez for their work on this and their support and the outreach that they've done um and considering this. Um and I think that this is our final slide. We'll take up questions after the public hearing and I am really excited to hear the discussion that members will have um up here and hear from our community member. I'm in a really interesting position where I'm presenting and then going right back into chairing. So, you're just going to hear from me a little bit more and then we'll go into the public. So, before I open up the public hearing, I have some notes to share for everyone in attendance and especially those who might participate in our hearings or comment period, let me offer this notice. These hearings are being recorded and broadcast. Both the recording and broadcast are classified as public data under the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act. By attending and participating in these proceedings, your image and any testimony or information that you provide will also be subject to disclosure under that law. That includes, but is not limited to, your attendance, your name, your other personal details you provide, as well as any testimony or comments you provide, which includes any written submissions you make, which are included in the record of this meeting. Each speaker will be given 2 minutes to testify, 4 minutes if you require interpreter services. And if you wish to address the committee during this hearing, and you haven't already signed in, please register with the clerks at the registration table located in the corridor outside of the chamber walls. You may also provide any written comments. So, for example, if you have way more that you wanted to say, and you have it all written out, and you get stopped at 2 minutes, you can offer that written submission to our clerks, and they will put it in the public record. Um Also, if you just have written comments and you weren't planning to speak, that is also something you could submit. Also, if there are community members that aren't here with us today and couldn't make it, that is a way for them to put in their voice, and we definitely encourage it. Um And if you haven't registered already, please do so. Um I'll also give a reminder once we're at the end of the list that we have. If you felt really called to speak, for you to come up, um and give your testimony before we close the hearing. So, with that, I'll open the public hearing, and then welcome up our first signed-up speaker. Our Our first speaker is Nicole F. Welcome. Good afternoon. My name is Nicole Farrell and I'm with the 13th Ward and I'm the mom of two, a graduate of Annunciation and a seventh grader at Annunciation. On the morning of August 27th, my 12-year-old was sitting with his classmates in a place that should have been the safest place imaginable. Instead, he found himself hiding under a church pew watching the blood of a classmate inch closer and closer to him. He listened to other kids whispering prayers, wishing they would stop, terrified that the gunman would find them. Life for our family looks very different now. My son is always on alert, scanning for danger. Unexpected noises as simple as opening a can of crescent rolls for dinner can send him spiraling. The normal sounds of our home feel threatening. My stomach drops every time I see a flood of text messages in our parent chat cuz that's how I learned of the shooting that day. My oldest used to babysit Fletcher Merkel, one of two children murdered on August 27th. She grieves for him and the innocence of his siblings. She worries if her brother will be scared when he goes to cheer her on at a track meet because of the sounds that accompany the start of every race. Every week, our family sits with professionals helping us build tools for a new normal that none of us asked for. And like many families, we are trying to find our footing in a world that no longer feels predictable and safe. Yesterday, the Senate passed Senate File 4067. News coverage has described it as a measure aimed at strengthening safety in schools and communities and for families like mine, that step forward is meaningful. On Thursday, a vote on an ordinance in Minneapolis here to prohibit high-capacity magazines, ghost guns, and more will take place. These ordinances and bills are not just for Annunciation families alone. It's not an ordinance or bill for one school, one neighborhood, or one moment in time. They're for our entire city, our entire state, and every community that wants to prevent another family from living through what ours did. Thank you. I apologize. That's 2 minutes, but you can give the rest of your comments to our clerks. Thank you so much. Our next speaker is speaker number two, Diana Glass. Good afternoon. My name is Diana, and my husband Michael and I have a 7-year-old son, 5-year-old daughter, and 1-year-old daughter. Our two older children attend Annunciation. At the time of the tragic event, our son was in mass, and our daughter was in the preschool room located in the basement. They don't fully understand what happened that day. Our understanding of their experience is pieced together from the narratives of others. Typically at this point, I would share what I learned about their morning, but I've also come to the personal decision it's their story to share, not mine. What I will share is what it's like to be an Annunciation school parent. The events of our personal histories, um they're events in our personal histories where we remember where we remember exactly where we were. We have added August 27th to that list. After dropping off our children, I drove to my workplace in Golden Valley. Upon opening my laptop, I discovered a message from someone who typically doesn't reach out. His message read, "I just heard about a potential shooting at Annunciation. Are your kids okay?" I grabbed my phone, ran to a conference room to see a flood of text messages from other moms. I called my husband, who was still at our home not far from our school. He was in the basement, but after hearing unending emergency vehicles, he walked upstairs to to investigate. I told him to run to the school. He told me to get into a lift. That lift is something I will never forget. Sitting in the morning rush hour traffic while waiting to pick up your children is an indescribable pain. The I first received word that our daughter was okay. It felt like an eternity as I waited the update on our son. During that time I remember playing memories with my son. I thought about the day he was born, all the moments, all the first moments, what he looked like that morning, and random moments in between. I do not take for granted what we I do not take for granted that we were able to bring both our kids home that day. I remember walking home from the school and exchanging somber glances with Windom neighborhoods. All of our worlds changed forever that morning. As we try to move on, we know our children's sense of safety was robbed in an instant on August 27th, and we know and we never know when or how this is going to show up in our everyday lives. One of the hardest things is hearing your children share that they're sad, but they don't know why they're sad. As parents, we absolutely know why they're sad. As parents, we know there is some sparkle that's been lost. As parents, we see they are not the same children, nor are we. The city of Minneapolis has an opportunity to take a step, and I implore elected officials to think about August 27th. Think about the sights and sounds no child should ever experience. Think about the ongoing physical and mental load on children, faculty, and helpers. Think about the caregivers navigating what feels impossible some days. Lastly and most importantly, think about Fletcher and Harper. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next, we have speaker number three. Um Kayla L. Hello. Uh my name is Kayla Lillehei. Um I'm in the 13th Ward. Uh every day since August 27th, I am confronted with the shocking reality that my child, on her third day of kindergarten, became a survivor of a mass shooting. That morning, my husband ran down the stairs shouting that there had been a shooting at Annunciation. We live only a few blocks away, and as we ran toward the school, my entire body began to shake at the sight of yellow crime scene tape, fleets of emergency and SWAT vehicles, and dozens of officers swarming our sweet neighborhood school. Not knowing any details about what had transpired, we entered a scene of chaos filled with sobbing children with blood on their clothes clinging to the teachers and parents searching frantically for our daughter and fearing the absolute worst. My daughter and her classmates were nowhere to be found and as we circled the room over and over again, all I could think of was they are all gone. After 10 excruciating minutes, we found our 5-year-old in the gymnasium standing ramrod straight, staring fixedly ahead, and trying so hard to be so very brave. Words cannot describe the relief I felt as I finally wrapped my arms around her small body. Though she was physically unharmed, her innocence was stolen that day. For several months, she struggled intensely with nightmares and large emotional outbursts and responded what with what can only be described as terror to loud noises. She was haunted by the memory of sheltering in her classroom hearing over 100 rounds fired in a 2-minute time span, and the bloodied kids she'd witnessed as she waited for us in the gym. As we held her and rocked her over and over again in the days after, the only thing she would say to me is, "I saw so many bloody kids." Even as the initial impact of that day has waned for her, she remains extremely sensitive to loud sudden sounds, seeking constant confirmation that she is safe. The hard truth is that while the events of that day will absolutely have a role in shaping our daughter, we don't know what that will look like tomorrow, next week, or next year. What we do know is that today she speaks with heartbreaking clarity about her schoolmates, Harper and Fletcher, who live in heaven because someone killed them with a gun at her beloved school. Safety is the most, if not the most important thing we can provide to our children, and collectively we have failed at this. I want to be able to look my children in the eyes and tell them that their parents, their grandparents, their community did everything, not nothing, not just one thing, but everything to keep them safe. Inaction is no longer an option. No progress on any of the myriad of strategies to lessen the impact of gun violence is simply unacceptable. It is our responsibility, it is our duty, and it is our privilege to protect our babies. >> Thank you. The only path forward is through action. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Next we have speaker number four, Leia Kandus, and I'll also just offer the reminder um make sure you're speaking right into a mic when you come up here. My name is Leia Kandus and I live in the Hale neighborhood. I lead the Minneapolis local group of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and I'm here today in support of the Minneapolis Safe Firearms Ordinance. I'm the mother of three daughters. The oldest one was born in March of 1999, the month before semi-automatic weapons were used to kill 13 people at Columbine High School in Colorado. My youngest daughter, just since I started volunteering with Moms Demand Action in 2019, has been at the mall for one of their shootings and at the State Fair for one of their shootings, and her campus was recently on lockdown due to the threat of gun violence. Ironically, none of these close calls happened in Minneapolis, but if our federal government and our state government aren't going to take steps to keep her safe, then I hope the state will someday let cities do what they can, and I appreciate this council's efforts to follow the example set by St. Paul and Edina. I live less than 2 miles from Annunciation Church. What happened there easily could have happened at the church I attended for more than two decades, which is also less than 2 miles from Annunciation. While no single piece of legislation will eliminate all gun violence, we need to start somewhere. Starting with weapons designed to shoot a lot of people very quickly and to shoot bullets at such high velocity that even someone who is not wounded by a bullet but is grazed and impacted enough to suffer negative consequences seems like a good place to start. A 2018 study estimates that guns equipped with high-capacity magazines, which include assault weapons and other semi-automatic firearms, account for 22 to 36% of crime guns in most places with some estimates upward of 40% for cases involving serious violence, including homicide of law enforcement officers. I encourage the council to vote yes on this ordinance. Thank you so much. Next is speaker number five, Tess Rada. Hi, my name is Tess Rada. My daughter Layla is 8 years old and she goes to school at Annunciation. Um I've lived in South Minneapolis my entire life. I grew up in Kingfield. I went to Kenny Elementary. Um and so when Layla was a kid, I decided I wanted her to go to school there, but I wanted to choose the safest option because I've always been really frightened of school shootings. I always it's always been something I've worried about and um Annunciation seemed like a safe option. When Layla was in first grade, I remember I had a panic attack because her classroom was the closest to the door and I knew what that could mean. When she was in second grade, my heart lifted a little because then she was on the second floor of the building. And when Layla was in third grade, a gunman shot 116 bullets into Annunciation Church during all-school mass, killing a classmate she's known since preschool, Fletcher, as well as 10-year-old Harper. Layla and her class hid under the pews and then ran to the basement where they went into a preschool classroom and barricaded the door while the shooting continued. Lila's dad was in the parking lot listening to the gunfire helplessly because she had forgotten her lunch that day and he had just dropped it off. When your worst fear comes true, it's hard to know what to do. I used to go to the memorial at the church in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep. I have shed so many tears at that place. This has been one of the most painful experiences of my life. My PTSD is so bad that I lost my full-time job. Lila flinches and hides when unexpected noises occur. She and all of the other students had to grow up in that 2 minutes of gunfire. They now know they're not safe, not even at school or church. After this happened, my immediate reaction was that I had to get out of this country because how could I keep my daughter safe in a country that almost killed her, in a country that I can't assure her is safe? But, my mind changed quickly. I work with kids part-time as a theater educator and even though I can't protect Fletcher and Harper and I can't protect Lila and her friends, I can do everything in my power to protect the kids this hasn't happened to yet. Annunciation families don't have the luxury of shielding our kids from the knowledge of school shootings, but you do. So, don't wait until it's too late. I urge you to pass this ordinance so that the suffering our children have endured is not for nothing. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have speaker number six, Eileen Johnson. Thank you. Uh my name is Eileen Johnson. I live in Ward 3 in North Loop. I may have misunderstood the open uh comment, but am I allowed to speak to Officer Jamal Mitchell Way? No, it must be germane to the topic. >> Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have speaker number seven, Dave Borton. Good afternoon, Council, and thank you for this opportunity. My name is Dave Borton. I'm a vet. I represent today Veterans for Peace Chapter 27, and I'm a member of St. Timothy Lutheran Church. I'm here to say that Veterans for Peace endorses your work and this ordinance 110%. I've followed the discussions at our state legislature. Subcommittee meetings and yesterday the full Senate. And yesterday one senator said, "It's disingenuous to call these weapons of war." And I say nonsense. This gun was implemented in 1964. It's to inflict the most damage possible in the shortest period of time, to suppress fire, and to splinter when it enters the human body. There's absolutely no place on our streets for these 22 million 22 million guns, semi-automatic assault weapons that are all already on the street. I can't have a bazooka in my garage. I can't have a tank parked out front. I can't have a missile in the backyard. Why is this weapon of war any different? Yesterday I listened to the Senate discuss this. And in that, they said, this is unconstitutional. Well, what's unconstitutional? It's the welfare of an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old in mass getting slaughtered. Our kids in the playground. I want to thank you all of you that you've worked that have worked on this. I'd like to encourage you to seek the next step. Dream big and act boldly. Make this community safer for all of our citizens. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Next we have speaker number eight, Michael Bert. Good afternoon, council members. My name is Michael Bert and I'm here because I love Minneapolis. I'm a dad of five at Annunciation and this isn't just where I live, this is who I am. My grandpa was a Hennepin County Sheriff, had 10 kids. My mom was an HCMC emergency room charge nurse, grew up in eight kids. My dad opened his first grocery store when he was 20 years old on 35th and Lyndale. And today I own and run our family's nut and candy company in the first ward in Northeast Minneapolis. Like so many of us I've always bragged about the city. Even when things are hard, George Floyd, ice tensions, we still say this is the best place to live, to raise kids, to build a business. And then August 27th happened. The day before on August 26th, I was at the State Fair with my son Benny, my oldest. We were working our stand together like my dad did with me teaching that business is about human connection. He spent all his earnings later that night on rides, smiling ear to ear, that freckle-faced redhead. The next morning on I-27th, I was at our plant when my phone rang at 8:26. It was my kids' mom standing two doors down from Annunciation. She was hysterical. She said, "There's a shooter. I'm watching a shooter fire into the church. The kids are at mass. Please come quick." I left my plant in Northeast, and I drove through the city, Marshall Avenue Bridge, Washington 94, driving in the emergency lane, horn blaring, praying no one would pull out. I texted every group I had. "Active shooter, church, kids at mass, come now." When I got there, kids were being rushed into houses. I found they'd been moved to the gym. I ran past officers telling me to stop. And when I opened those doors, kids were lined up on the floor by age. There was blood, tears. There were blank stares, every kid, no matter how old, calling for their mom and dad. And then I saw Benny, that same smiling kid from the day before, now sitting silent, then running to me sobbing. "Dad, they shot Sofia. Sofia got shot. What's happening?" I found my three girls. I couldn't find my daughter Marley. For 10 minutes, I didn't know where she was. We finally found her, evacuated to Starbucks. Later that morning, we searched for the two kids missing. I called my good friend Mike Moskey. And there, standing in the backyard, falling to my knees, I heard Mike tell me that sweet Harper, one of my Marley's closest friends since kindergarten, didn't make it out alive. And then came the moment no parent should ever face, sitting your child down and telling them their friend is gone. More to come. Please pass this ordinance. Thank you. Next, we have speaker number nine. Dave L. David L. Hello. Again. >> Welcome back. Uh my name is David Loss. I'm the senior pastor at Mount Olive Lutheran Church. On August 27th of last year, I arrived at Annunciation Church and School at about 10:30 that morning after receiving word that one of our the two slain children was one of our Minneola kids, 8-year-old Fletcher Merkel. I do not have the time to describe the hurt and devastation I witnessed that day or the toll it has taken on Annunciation children and families and our whole community in the months since. But I can say that I arrived there as had everyone else that morning as a responder. That is whether medical staff, emergency personnel, law enforcement, counselors, or clergy, all we could do was pick up the pieces. Responding matters, but it is not enough. The proposed ordinance before you offers an opportunity to do more. It offers an opportunity to be proactive, to move forward, to take action to prevent tragedy rather than just respond to it. As you deliberate, I would ask you to move past two conventional, but I think misconceived objections. First, I've heard it said that any gun safety ordinances proposed should be both comprehensive and proven already to be effective before they are adopted. But common sense suggests that any and every measure we can take to reduce gun violence is a vital step forward, and we will not know what is most effective until we try. Second, people will argue that because state legislation takes precedent over city ordinance, taking such action is a hollow gesture. But I am a huge believer that nothing done in hope and love is ever lost. And that gestures such as this are therefore never hollow, but can indeed light the way forward to more complete, salutary, and statewide action later. Thank you for your consideration and for all your good work. Thank you. Next, we have speaker number 10, Libby Holden. Hi. My name's Libby Holden. I live in Ward 13 proudly, and my family has been Minneapolis residents since 1860. You could not have told my ancestors living in Longfellow or Tangletown or Fulton or Whittier that I, on August 27th, after I dropped my kid at school, would race home so that I could help plan a neighborhood vigil in our neighborhood park at Lynhurst that same night. I want to speak to the broad impact that gun violence has in our community. 58% of all Americans have lost someone to gun violence or been an a a victim themselves. But that reverberates so much further outward. We deserve to be safe from violence. We deserve to not have the fear like my 8-year-old, my 7-year-old said, "Mom, I heard one of the kids that died was eight. I want to live past eight." In passing this, you can send a message to the state legislature that this is important. The rules that apply to Baxter, Minnesota should not necessarily apply here in downtown Minneapolis. And you can give our kids hope. Thank you. Thank you so much. So, I have three more speakers signed up. So, if you have not signed up to speak and you would like to speak, please sign in with the clerks. Um if that's something that you would like to do. And then we'll go to speaker number 11. And then I have Sorry, I'm having a little trouble with the handwriting, so I'll give it my best shot. I have Markel Iglesias. Okay. Yes, come on up. Welcome. Good afternoon, council council members. My name is Markel Iglesias and I should not be stand before you to share my story today. When I was 18, on January 2021, January 30th, I attended a birthday party at the University of Minnesota in Dinkytown. I was shot four times by a random gunman who opened fire into a crowd with a .40 caliber hollow points and with binary trigger. Once in my upper rib cage, once in my arm, twice in my arm, and once in my pelvic region. I lost my spleen and half my pancreas. My left elbow feels pain 90% of the day. At HMC, I spent a couple weeks in a coma. Waking from that, sorry, was my spent 4 months in the hospital, following that up with 70 more visits back and forth from the hospital. Because of these experiences, I have moments of uncertainty with the fear of with the fear of being shot that could happen on a daily basis. I battle the fear of a shooting happening over and over again and sometimes it gets so bad that it's even hard to step out of my car or leave my home. My hope today is that this ordinance can be put in place to help prevent what happened to me from happening to other young children in our future. Today I'm 23 years old. I'm a personal trainer and I own my own car detailing business. It's been a journey and I've come to meet a lot of amazing people that have helped me through this journey. I only add this due to the fact that there are two that there are too many people, men, women, and children who do not have that opportunity to be here today. Going through these experiences, it's put me into a position to speak on this honestly and openly. Gun violence is still the leading cause of death for our youth with ages between 1 and 19. And I think about the experience I went through at age 18. And then I think about what those kids went through at Annunciation at the ages of 8 and 10 and even younger, and it breaks my heart. No one should have to suffer that pain. No one. We need this ordinance in place so that an individual cannot walk into a crowd and in 3 seconds change the lives of thousands. There's needs There needs to be more stopgaps in place and preventions like the ordinance that puts a ban on extended clips, ghost guns, binary triggers, and assault rifles. It's a step in the right direction in this day and age, even if it's a baby step, we need to take it to bring some hope and safety back into the city we all know and love. I do hope that this council today makes a logical decision. Thank you for your time. Thank you so much. Next, I have speaker number 12, Michael. Welcome. Thank you. Uh I'm a veteran, too, and I don't particularly support your work. Um I hate bad guys. Uh I don't know if everybody here is aware that four people here on this council fly under the flag of moving towards a future without police, prisons, or courts. It's just amazing to me. And you got another councilman whose first question to the cop yesterday when there's 30 people who broke into vehicles, possibly stealing weapons, is how can we help these people that are stealing? They're breaking into cars. No mention of the victims. We we don't care about victims in this in this city. I mean, is somebody going to read this to the criminals? So that they can shoot me with a in-compliance weapon? This is ridiculous. And then so if if my car gets broken to into and my weapon is stolen, will I get in more trouble than the guy stealing the weapon out of my car because that's what it seems to be? Because now we have violent apartment invasions where they have dance parties on the roof. We got shootings down at the at the lake. Does Does anybody get punished around here? We've got a few councilmen that have some fight in them. They kind of stand with the police that I kind of like. But not many. You got a shrinking police department and there's nothing more expensive than a shrinking police department. Yes. Cities are having trouble recruiting. Gee, I wonder why. I wouldn't want to work with for you people. It's just amazing. It's just amazing what happens in this city. It's amazing what uh is said up here. This is going to Yeah, this is a good This is a baby step to what? Nothing. This isn't gun violence, it's people violence. And you got to do something about people. Prison is a good start. All right. Speaker number 13, Maggie Emery. Hi. Good afternoon, Chair Chaudry and council members. My name is Maggie Emery and I'm the executive producer of the executive director of Protect Minnesota. Um and I'm proud to be here in support of this ordinance. Um and grateful for this council's this council's leadership in advancing it speaking as a survivor of gun violence. This policy reflects a clear and necessary principle. Firearms are inherently dangerous and cities have the responsibility and should have the authority to set reasonable evidence-based boundaries on where they are carried to protect public safety. The urgency is undeniable. In 2025, almost 600 Minnesotans lost their lives to gun violence and this state saw horrific tragedies perpetuated by guns. The harm done by assault weapons, magazines, binary triggers and ghost guns has never been more evident. We also know from research that with that when these types of guns are present risk escalates, conflict becomes deadlier and outcomes become irreversible. Mass shootings involving high-capacity magazines and assault weapons have more than double the fatalities of those without them. Ghost guns are a rapidly growing tool for those who cannot legally own a firearm and are overrepresented in use in crime. Last year, 77% of the gun deaths in Minnesota were suicides. Safe storage is a proven tool to reduce access to lethal means in an acute moment of suicidal crisis. The provisions in this ordinance are grounded in that evidence. Importantly, it reflects what leadership looks like. Acting divisively based on evidence to save lives. So while I'm here in support today, I also want to thank this council. Because bringing this ordinance forward sends a powerful message that in Minneapolis, protecting life is a priority and it's not up for debate. On behalf of Protect Minnesota and the communities we serve here in Minneapolis and across the state, thank you for moving this forward. I know that lives will be saved because of it. Thank you. After this, I have one more speaker signed up. So if you are wishing to speak and you haven't already, um please do sign up with the clerks. So our 14th speaker is Leslie Jackson. Hello again council members. Thank you for having this and I'm surprised that I wasn't paying attention to the agenda following the mayor's speech. But 45 years ago my mother was murdered with a semi 9 mm mm new teeth. 9 mm um 15 rounds because the cartridge size was plunged into her head or stomach or chest. Even though it didn't happen in the city of Minneapolis um my stepfather not only killed and murdered my mother in front of my younger sister, he came up to campus where I was attending student as a student for computer repair and maintain the functions of computer. I was disenrolled because of it. Even though this ordinance is about rifles, handguns too are semi weapons. And please include handguns in this bill and not just focus on the rifles. You can get guns up to 30 handguns up to 30 rounds besides the city, you know, the semi rifles. So I thank you for this ordinance and hopefully you include handguns in this. So I still grieve. My heart goes out to all the people and parents and children who witness in their parents get killed by gun violence. Um they took the street fight into the hands of guns and hopefully this ordinance will curve and save more lives. But please include these handguns as well besides the rifles. And I thank each and every one of you for the work that you do and everybody here that's advocating to have a safer community. And I thank you. Thank you and with that I yield back. Thank you. Is there anyone else wishing to speak that would want to come and approach the desk um or the mic, before we close the public hearing. I'll just say it one more time. Is there anyone else wishing to speak? Okay. Seeing no other speakers, I will now close that public hearing, and I will ask members to get into queue for discussion or questions. Um I just first, before we go right into discussion, I just want to say thank you to every single person who spoke and gave their testimony. Um Our arms are just wrapped around you. As a city, as council members, I know that it's deeply re-traumatizing to go through those experiences again. And you're doing it so we can better our communities and push for this change. Um so I just wanted to offer that. I really I really felt what you were saying, and I know a number of us were up here, um right there with you. So we have several members in queue. Um I'll go to Councilmember Whiting. Thank you, Chair Chaudry. Um it looks like I clicked the wrong button here, but it should have been amend. Uh in front of you, colleagues, uh you will see an amendment moving forward. I know uh Councilmember Chaudry uh spoke to those amendments. I I will kind of just quickly summarize those for all of us again here. Uh first, I kind of would most I would like to motion to amend this ordinance. Uh first, to change the definition of large-capacity magazines from 20 rounds to 10 rounds, to align with best practices that we've seen across the state, and our advocates have been moving forward um with second, to add uh a definition of a locking device. Uh third, to add a definition of unattended. Um and fourth, to add a section related to safe swords storage. And then fifth and finally, uh to just some language related to the enactment uh of this ordinance. Um and I think I with that would I ask for a a second and then if the the chair would let me would like to speak to the the importance of this as well. Absolutely. And since it has multiple authors, it does not need a second. So, it is good to go. So, why don't you go ahead and speak to the amendment? >> Perfect. Thank you. Uh and first of all, I think it's just want to thank you to everyone um who spoke uh taking the time uh during our our our public hearing today. Your words and experiences are heard uh loud and clear across this body and across uh the city and the state of Minnesota and across this this country. Um in particular, I want to thank those with connections to to Cristo Rey High School uh in Ward 9 um and Annunciation Catholic High School uh in Ward 11 in my ward. I actually had to apologize recently to to Mr. Kaiser. I would sneak into the uh the gym in my youth and so he he he he he forgave me for that. Um but these these individuals and this community um have joined a club uh a uniquely American club um with a phenomenon of mass shootings in schools. Uh your bravery, character, and advocacy continue to inspire us um every single day. And then at lastly, thank you to my my colleagues um who have stood united in this commitment um particularly Council Member Chughtai who has led this effort um with focus and determination. Her leadership has been a a a textbook example of how to advance a delicate issue with strategy, community input, and legal expertise. And thank you to my other co-co-authors, Council Member Palmisano, Council Member Chavez. Um and and and I I want to take a note here particularly I shouldn't have to be thanking you today. Uh the fact that we have to sit up here and give thanks for coming to a public hearing is is deeply disturbing. It is disgusting, and it is a disease across our community. Gun violence, as we've heard noted, is the leading cause of death for children in this country. And it's like any other causes of death to those children, we know the cause. We we see the cancer, and we know the cure. And I think what we forget sometimes is that this is just does not affect the individuals that are harmed, particularly those who have been shot, and and those that are directly around it. There's a residual trauma to this this this this pandemic of sorts. And so, you know, just a just a note here, right? November 4th, 2025, I think is it was an exciting day for a lot of us here. It's the day that was my first time being elected, and then every single one of my council colleagues were elected as well. And for me, it's it's a it's a it's a deeply it's very exciting day, but it was a day that that comes with a lot of weight to it. November 4th, 2001, was the day that my father was shot and killed and shot in the head. So, for me, it is a version that we see that this is a residual trauma that affects every single person in this country. And the fact that again that we have to sit up here and do this work, and I know all 13 of us will be moving it forward, is a version that I am I am so proud and so thankful that this is this is something that I get to put across my desk today. And with that, right, we we know that this this this weird part of this cancer is that it it it grows buds of hope. It grows buds of joy. And I thank every single one of you as I see hope and joy on all of your shirts that this is what comes from it. So, continue to show up, continue to bring this joy because it matters. And it and it And it matters every single day. And so, we we know that cure, and that's removing guns. That's removing guns from our street. And so, it is past time for cities and states across the United States to protect our children and our families and every single individual in this country. Uh and we can do that. We make us an assault-style weapons ban. Weapons that have no place on our streets or in our schools. Uh and we need to make them inaccessible. Uh we are hopeful that by passing this trigger ban today and this ban across uh across the board um that we are joining St. Paul and Edina and other cities um having this message on our books. We are making it a clear and united statement that the Twin Cities will stand up for our children and for our families and that we can do uh and that we will do all that we can to support our representatives at the state and do the same. Thank you. Thank you, Council member. And then, Council member Chavez uh to the amendment before us. Uh I don't actually have one. I I think I'll just give myself off the queue cuz I think we have the other queue for the speaking. Oh, yeah. >> So, members, we can go back to the underlying queue. We have this amendment before us and I I'm just going to do a quick voice vote for the amendment um that's before us. So, all those in favor, say I. I. Those opposed, say nay. That amendment carries and um the ordinance is amended and before us. Next, we will go to Council member Warren. Thank you, um chair. Appreciate that. Um my heart's and prayers are with all of the families of Annunciation and of Cristo Rey. Um my own children who lost their father to gun violence, my first husband. Um so, I know this place. This has been a treacherous experience that has come across our our our city and in our homes. The impacts that it's had on our families. I am thankful that you are are standing here with the number of bullets that riddled through your body. So, this is this is a lot. And this is a lot of work. My deeper questions in respect to this ordinance is why isn't there cold packages on 3D printers that are printing out handguns? And then what are we doing with individuals that are in some form of mental health crisis that are getting a hold of these handguns? There has to be something that is done the the murder of those babies that just happened in Louisiana. I thought the most impactful thing that they did behind that guy who killed all of his children and then shot his current wife and the mother of his other children was that they went back and charged the individual of where he got the firearm from, who issued it to him. And I think that if whomever is leaving these firearms unattended whether it's in your home or I got it right here, I don't need to lock it up because I want to be able to get to it quick when whatever if you or feel like you're living in that type of imminent danger, you probably need to move and go somewhere else, okay? Go off in the woods by yourself. You understand what I'm saying? But those people need to be charged with a far more strenuous crime than what they are being charged with for leaving these firearms unattended, it pains me to watch the news articles and see two and three-year-old babies that in grabbed pistols from underneath mattresses and things like that where they're getting and they're and they're killing. They're losing their life. You know, this is this is deeply disheartening. There is so much work that needs to be done around this. I applaud um this and my colleagues. I'd like to be added to a co-author for this. Um and I applaud my colleagues for this, but there is a great deal of more work that needs to be done and centered around this because guns just don't stand up and shoot people by themselves. There are people who are associated with these behaviors that need to also have strenuous punishments and penalties around it, whether it's in in with respect to their mental health or people who are purchasing these guns and gifting them off to people or people not leaving them secured so that they end up in somebody else's hands who shouldn't have them. And that's that's where I'm at with that. The end. Council member Warren, um I would love to have you on as an author and I mean, if all council members want to be an author on this one, that is a welcome addition. I'm not seeing any objections, so look at that. 13 authors means 13 to vote, I think. Uh Council member Rayfield. Uh thank you, Chair. Yes, please add me as an author and uh I just want to speak briefly uh a note of thanks to the Annunciation family who came here today. I attended De La Salle High School and some of the best friends I made were from Annunciation. They're great scholars and way better athletes than I ever was. So, thank you for coming down and and know as Council member Whiting said, you have been heard. So, I will vote for this. I also I wanted to thank the original authors, Council member Pammisano, Whiting, and Chavez. Thank you for your work on this and allowing me to be a co-author. I do have that memory seared to me of Lyndhurst Park that night. Council member Vetaw and I drove down there and it was I'll always remember that and we can never have that happen again. So, very happy to vote for this, very grateful for the the initial authors and thank you so much for coming down and letting us know what we have to do. Thank you. Thank you, Council member. Next, I'll recognize Council member Chavez. Thank you, Chair Chaudhary. Just want to thank you personally for your work on leading the City Council on this ordinance, Chair, and for the relentless advocacy of the families and advocates who are not giving up on the desperate need to change that we need to see with gun reform in this country. And for quite frankly leading the state in changes that need to happen so desperately. As we take this vote today, I'm thinking about the kids at Annunciation and the Annunciation community who are leading with moral clarity. I have been very heartwarmed to hear the stories that you all were sharing with today and your bravery to be able to come here to City Hall saying that you all need to hear us. I know for a fact that the advocacy that you all have done has led to a historic vote in the State Senate, something that would have never happened without your voices in this process. I also think about the mass shootings of our unhoused neighbors in the City of Minneapolis who have been targeted. I think about the countless neighbors who have lost their lives to gun violence in South and North Minneapolis. And I also want to bring attention to a mass shooting that occurred on August 26th, 2025 next to Cristo Rey Jesuit High School. An individual fired 29 rounds within 8 seconds from a rifle at a group of people. The perpetrator killed Gregory Sweeten and six others were injured. This is my high school and this high school that I graduated from where 98% of the students here identify as Latino or black and it is home to working-class families. Students at Annunciation, students at Cristo Rey, students in our city of Minneapolis, in the state, and in this country should never have to wonder whether they're going to be able to make it back home with their families because of these senseless acts of gun violence. And with today's vote, I think we're sending a message to the Minnesota House of Representatives to clear here to please hear us, to please hear these families, to please hear the state Senate, and do your job in passing sensible gun reform. And I also want to thank Chair Chaundry for her tenacity and dedication in bringing this ordinance forward as well. If you don't know, on September 11th, 2025, uh Chair Chaundry gave notice of intent to bring this forward and since then has been working closely with our city attorney's office who have worked really hard to bring this forward. And earlier this year, she reintroduced this ordinance again because we need to listen to the families that are most impacted in demanding us to take action and change. So, I wanted to thank her, Council Member Whiting, Council Member Palmisano, um for also working on this as well. Thank you, Council Member. Next, I'll recognize Council Member Stevenson. Thank you. Uh thank you to everyone who came and testified. It was so powerful to hear your voice um and to hear about how, uh, the shooting at Annunciation has affected you on a personal level. It's it's it's, uh, sometimes we can lose the personal aspect of things up on this dais, so I really appreciate you coming in and sharing that. Um, I won't go too deep into it, but when I was in college, there was a shooting at my college, and my roommate's friend was was killed. And, uh, so graduation that year, all kinds of things that year, it was June 5th. So, June 5th is the day that's seared in my memory. Um, so I I empathize and I grieve with you that you have a day that on on the calendar, the day will will always pass and it'll always be this terrible day. Um, yeah, just this weekend there was a shooting at MLK Park, and there were four four teenagers who were shot, teenagers shooting each other. This is this is insanity. It's an American insanity that we're all living through. Um, you know, I'm I'm one of the younger folks on this dais, grew up doing, uh, uh, I forget what they're called now, but it's where all the kids hide in the classroom. I grew up doing that, and now I'm on this dais, and we're we're discussing this ordinance. It's it's a disturbing thing for for us to be doing. Uh, that it has gone on so long and so, uh, unaddressed. Um, yeah, and then there's been many many recent shootings, thankfully no one hurt or killed in in my ward in the, uh, recent past. And so, as we live through this this nightmare in America, thank you for your advocacy to to bring an end, to bring, uh, closure, to bring safety to people, uh, in our city and hopefully across the state, and then someday someday across the country. Thank you to my colleagues for for, uh, bringing this forward and doing this hard work, and thank you for letting me be a co-author. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Vita. Thank you, Chair. Um, I wanted to to say thank you to all the families and the advocates for coming here on behalf of this community. You all said that so many people have been touched by gun violence. I have two. When I was 15 years old, I was sitting on a bed with my younger cousin and she was shot and I looked up and her eye was rolling on the floor. Her eye got blown out of her head. Um, she survived. That was about 35 years ago. And I wish I grew up knowing I could be as strong as you all are here today. Knowing that there's a place for you to go advocate for safety and to push people to do better because kids should never She was 9 years old. Kids should never be subjected to gun violence. She lost her eye that day, but I certainly thought she was dead and that she died in front of my face. And there was two other kids in the room, too. When the parent got up earlier and talked about sounds and smells and all the things you feel and hear, you know, that was 35 years ago for me, but there are things that happen that feels like that moment for me. And it never goes away. I don't care how much therapy you get. I don't care how much time you spend working on it going away. It never ever goes away for some people. And sometimes I have questions about how something like that could happen and sometimes I have conversations with my family members. I was the oldest person in the house at that time at 15 and I have conversations with my younger cousins. And it's interesting what comes back to us after all these years. What we remember, what we purposely forgot. And it matters that people tell our stories and listen to us and talk about how awful this is because it really is. There's no turning back from gun violence and there's no reason why it should be happening especially to our babies. So, I appreciate you all just advocating on behalf of your children and your families in this community because we need it. Even though we're all touched by it, we need strong reminders that it's important for us to work on these things every single day. I always wish I could have done more and you all showing up here today and showing up I've been tracking you all at the hearings at the Capitol. Moms Demand Action have been around forever doing this great work and now the Annunciation family, you all are out and you're speaking on behalf of your community and it matters. It matters to us on the north side. We've lost some beautiful young children on the north side to gun violence. Aniya, Trinity. Ladavion survived but he was greatly impacted. Five years ago, three children shot in one summer in North Minneapolis. And all I can do as a council member for those families is a street renaming. That's nothing. That's nothing. That's what I offer for a little bit of joy to those families if they ask me. That's nothing. A baby on a trampoline killed having fun. I was sitting on a bed connecting a computer for my little cousin and our lives changed forever in that moment, forever. The sound, the smell the sirens, the screams. So, thank you all. Thank you all so, so very much. You keep at it until there's none of these weapons on our streets. I can feel the fight in you. I see it, all of you. They have messed with the wrong group of people. I can see it, and I'm here for it. You let me know however I can help. I want to. My family wants to. The North Side is with you. We want to help. We know, we've been crying out for years about how bad this is in our community, and we're so glad that we're all united on this, and we want it to be better. So, please, you all keep at it. Stay strong, rest, drink lots of water, protect our babies, protect our families. You all are wonderful people for doing this. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Next, I'll recognize Council Member Palmisano. I think my colleagues have said really important things here, so I don't want to dilute that. Um I do want to thank you, Council Member Chowdhury, for championing this from the beginning as IGR Chair. Um in this job, we've grown close to many many families that have experienced gun violence um in our city. Some have already been mentioned here. I think that these Annunciation families have shown strength beyond themselves, strength beyond their own, um and have really embraced the perspective of everybody that experiences gun violence and all the ways that it impacts our city and beyond. Um you've made time to be here, and there are hundreds of families directly impacted by the shooting, those that have children that attend Annunciation, those who worship at Annunciation, those who have neighbors on their blocks who learn and worship at Annunciation, your work um gives us hope and it helps to really unite everyone in your path. Um There are hundreds of the same at Cristo Rey High School. I know less of them in my community, but they are there. Um the visceral stories of how people in this room have been impacted by guns is very heavy and I appreciate your ability and strength to share those stories um and for being here together. And we are all from the Southside to the Northside speaking with one voice and that's a strong voice. I also represent first responders who show up and do their jobs and protect our community and are deeply traumatized and suffer the impacts of gun violence themselves. Um and we as a body get to represent the entire collective of Minneapolis who's standing in the face of these shootings to say no more. Not here. Um to try and say something technical about this ordinance, I really like how it's been laid out with a lot of work with eight sections. Thank you, Attorney Schut. Um cuz it allows us to be ready to go and we can pull just those exact provisions that we can enact per the state. Whether it's banning assault weapons, requiring safe storage, or reducing the size of a large capacity magazine. Um I think importantly this ordinance sends the message that we're serious about sensible gun control in Minneapolis and we're hopeful that the state could potentially already also pass this. So, thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Next, I'll recognize Council Member Scheifer. Where we sit today is not acceptable. And for all of you to show up and stand up and share your pain, share your heartache with us and with the broader community means we're all on the same team. That we can no longer continue to accept what has become a norm in our culture. So, thank you for standing up, Moms in Action, for being here today and for every single personal story that was shared. Because when we hear your story, we learn. When we hear your story, we understand the importance of the need for action right now in this place and in this time. And so, thank you for your encouragement. Thank you to the encouragement of my colleagues to be able to stand with all of you in this time, hearing your stories, hearing your work that you have spent on this. I am proud today to support this effort, and please know that I will also never forget that evening in Lynhurst Park um standing with the crowd, holding my candle looking up and seeing two crosses above the crowd, one for Fletcher and one for Harper. And that will be a moment I will always remember. And please know, I continue to pray for the families at Annunciation and for everyone who has still been impacted and will forever be impacted by the by gun violence in their lives. So, thank you for being here today with us and um it means a lot to me. Thanks. Thank you, council member. And I just have myself last in queue um to just give a couple final thank yous. Um thank you again to everyone that testified, to the Annunciation families, to the community, um and Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, to Moms Demand Action to to to Protect Minnesota. And then, Marquelle, thank you for being up here and sharing your story. I know that wasn't easy. We really appreciate it. Thank you to all of my colleagues. One, for your support, but two, sitting on this body and experiencing what it's been like to sit on this body for the last couple years and this last year and the last 4 months. I know you all have endured an immense amount of trauma yourselves being on the front lines and I know that that colors the way that you show up here every day and it colors the way in which you are ardent in fighting for this community and its safety and you feel protective over it just like me and we might spend a lot of time debating and disagreeing on some weeks, but it's it feels good on this one that we're very clear eyed and together on this because we do just have a very shared unique experience. And I also want to thank City Attorney Amy Schutt and the City Attorney's Office for their work with me. Really appreciate you. I also want to thank two colleagues former colleagues that are not here today, but were there the day of the shooting annunciation that joined me, Council Member Palmisano, Council Member Wedding, and Council Member Payne on scene. I want to thank Council Member Emily Koski and Council Member Cashman. They're they're also just as much a part of this work. Even if they're not taking the vote on this today. I also want to thank our state legislators, Senator Zena Mohamed for leading the way at the State Senate and fighting so so hard for our entire community, representative Emma Greenman, who's the author in the house, and our entire Minneapolis delegation, and every single person that's voting in support of this and will continue to advocate for it. And I want to thank um our first responders, our police officers, fire, and EMT, because they have to do the hard job of showing up and caring for individuals impacted by gun violence, and they want to prevent it just as much as we do. Um And the last thing that I'll say as a newly minted 29-year-old on this dais, um my sister would call me a geriatric Gen Z. Um my entire life, I, like many of the other folks, younger folks on this dais, has been colored by uh school shooting drills and a world that feels like it's getting ever the more violent. Um I'll never forget December 31st, uh 2021. I was just uh I was in my earliest 20s, just shopping for a New Year's Eve dress at the Mall of America, you know, getting ready to go to a party with my friends, and I heard gunshots ring out, and I watched the mall go into lockdown, and I was like, this is this is my rite of passage as a young person in America. Um and it's still it will never be easy to go over there. I don't go to that store anymore. I just can't go to that store anymore. And it was one of the hardest things to call my mom and tell her, "Hey, can you just like sit down for a second so I can tell you what's going on?" And I can't imagine what it feels like to be a parent and to know that your kids are in a space where you where you got that phone call. Cuz I know it was really tough for her. Um and so this is the work. We are in the middle of it. The mayor has given his full-throated support. It's great. And I think I remember him saying we're a city united in grief, and I want to just say we're a city united in resilience and action. And we are going to fight like hell. And we are going to take this moment and push that house as far as we can get it. You have our word. And if we don't get it, we'll keep on fighting for it all summer long all the way until next session as as long as we need to do it, and you have the support of the city of Minneapolis in that. Thank you. Seeing no further discussion, I will move for approval. I don't think we need a second. Excellent. Second, 13th. Um just for emphasis, let's call the roll on this one. Council member Payne. Aye. Wonsley. >> Aye. Rainville. >> Aye. Vetaw. Aye. Warren. Aye. Osman. Aye. Schieber. Aye. Stephenson. Aye. Chavez. >> Aye. Weeding. Aye. Palmisano. Aye. Vice Chair Chughtai. Aye. And Chair Ellison Hudry. Aye. There are 13 ayes. That motion carries. MEMBERS, I KNOW I NEED IT, so I'm assuming others will need it, too. Let's call uh a short recess and come back in 10 minutes. So, for you, that's 3:30 3:22. Let's come back in 10 minutes. >> Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Tag team, 1 minute. The time is now 3:24. I will ask the clerk to call the roll to verify the presence of a quorum. Council member Payne. Present. Council member Mosley. Is absent. Council member Rainville. Present. Council member Vita. Present. Council member Warren. Present. Council member Osman is absent. Council member Schaefer. Present. Council member Stevenson. Present. Council member Chavez. Present. Council member Whiting is absent. Council member Palmisano. Present. Vice Chair Chughtai is absent. Chair Choudhury. Present. Council member Whiting. Present. There are 10 members present. Let the record reflect that we have a quorum. Okay, members. Now we will be taking up our receive and file items. First, we'll be receiving and filing a response to a legislative directive regarding independent legal counsel. I'll invite up Dwight Miller from the legislative research and oversight team for that presentation. Welcome. Thank you. Good afternoon. Um Good afternoon, Chair Choudhury and committee members. My name is Dwight Miller from the legislative research and oversight team, and I'm here to discuss my research on independent legal counsel for City Council. First, I want to ground us in the staff direction um that kind of brought forth this research. Um before we get into kind of like the all the words, um wanted to just align ourselves in definitions. When we talk about independent legal counsel in this context, um what we mean is independent um attorneys that are independent of the executive branch attorney seat, which in a municipality um context is usually the city attorney. Um in a state context it's usually the attorney general. These roles help draft legis- help draft legislation, work to ensure that the council's actions comply with applicable law, and provides advice on legal risk. This brief provides a high-level overview of independent legal counsel for legislative branches at the local, state, and federal levels. I also emphasize the work of local governments that have independent counsels in this presentation. I'll start off with a high-level overview and then get into some of the specific local examples. I also want to highlight a disclaimer. The research and analysis services provided by the legislative research and oversight team are intended to support policy making, oversight, and inform decision-making by the city council. It is not intended to nor should be relied upon as legal advice or substitute for consultation with the office of the city attorney of Minneapolis. All right, before we get started into sort of the high-level analysis, I did want to make sure we kind of ground ourselves in kind of our local context. Um Minneapolis has particular constraints regarding um implementing independent legal counsel. According to the city's charter, the city attorney is the sole authority um and attorney for the city as a single legal entity, and the charter does not bifurcate um the city from the city council. The establishment of a independent legal counsel would require a charter amendment requiring significant political will. I just emphasize this as we're going and learning about um the different landscape locally that that would be a hurdle that would need to um be cleared before we start to talk about some of the other specific learnings from it. All right, high-level local landscape. So, whenever we talk about peer cities, which was a kind of a key part of the staff direction, I looked at 70 cities that had greater than 300,000 residents according to the 2020 census. In this brief, I reviewed 70 cities. 39 had mayor-council models, which was part of the staff direction to have cities that have strong mayor legislative council models. 39 of them had that. 27 had city attorneys that were appointed by the mayor and then approved by the city council. 10 had city attorneys that were elected directly by the people. And there were two outliers. One you have phrased it as hired by the city council and then there was another one that was hired by a commission, a separate commission. I want to point your attention to the far right of the slide. Um Of the cities of the 39 cities that kind of had council-mayor models, I was able to find evidence of independent legal counsel in six cities. That is New York City, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Jacksonville, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. For this presentation, I will cover specifically, and also in the brief, I'll cover specifically New Orleans, Jacksonville, Florida, and also um Seattle, Washington. That's a group of cities. There's a wide variety of what an independent legal counsel could be. Particularly, for instance, Jacksonville, their general counsel, that's the counsel to their city council, is actually what is their called the council secretary, which is the equivalent of the city clerk. And they actually just have 5 hours of time per week to be able to provide legal advice and to look at the legislation. Um we'll talk more about Jacksonville later. You have that on that one scale, you have Jacksonville, and you also have DC, which has a legislative council for various legislative department. They also have a um their president, council president, actually has their own representation and attorney, um along with um they have a executive branch, their mayor has a council, and then they have the attorney general. Um DC is an outlier because DC is not a city, is a district, um and so that's why if you're looking at like that seems like a lot, um it's because they have their own um different peculiarities, and also are indirectly run by Congress. Speaking of Congress, I'm going to do a very high quick overview of the federal and state level so we can have more time for the um local examples. Um at the federal level, there is Congress with the US Senate and the US um House of Representative. Um both chambers have their own general counsel that's separate from the executive branch. Um however, these institutions are kind of treated as separate legal entities. Um it should also be noted that these aren't explicitly in the US Constitution, however, they are established by um statute. State level analysis, um looking at kind of all the all 50 states, 45 of them I was able to find very clear and explicit evidence of having some type of non-partisan legislative or legal department to help with drafting bills and providing um legal council. Um these entities don't provide litigation, um but they are there to in order to support the um legislative making. Um this map highlights the in the yellow those um states that was not able to find evidence of a particular law department that was separate from it, um based on just kind of the research that I was able to do um online. All right, now, when this is my highlight, so we have our six, and then we are able to highlight three of them. That's the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, city of Jacksonville, which is actually kind of an interesting governance structure because Jacksonville {slash} Duval County um in Jacksonville, Florida, and the city of Seattle. I added Seattle because I like having three as a rule of three. Um this is like that's how I like being able to see as far as a sample. Even though I will say Seattle is an outlier in all of this because they elect their city attorney, not necessarily mayor appointed. Um so, looking at New Orleans, Jacksonville, and Seattle. First, let's look at New Orleans. They established their executive council in 2019 um after some tension with the mayor led to um between the mayor led law department and the city council. Um their council office is small with three staff, which is the director, the deputy director, and also um a legislative um law researcher, legal researcher. Um I want to emphasize that when talking to New Orleans, they they've been doing this kind of the longest of the sample size in 2019. They're They've noticed that there's some long-term impacts um of having a separate legal council, particularly that the city council generally defaults to the executive council as like the place where they start their legislation and start drafting them. So, then the law department never actually has as much practice on developing the laws. And so, what happens is the law department, which is under this kind of their city attorney, they have to defend laws where they're not in the um privacy of being able to draft them in order to avoid lawsuits. So, then it becomes creates a level of disalignment that's there. Um and that's just a limitation that they were just bringing up as I was talking about like what advice you would give since you've been in in this model the longest. Jacksonville, Florida recently had an independent legal council, and that was that 5-hour role that I was mentioning earlier in this presentation. That was after an 11-6 no confidence vote um of their city attorney because they believe that the city attorney literally wasn't doing their job effectively um and providing bad legal counsel. So after that no confidence vote in 2025 in March they had their council secretary who was previously government attorney provide 5 hours of legal service on top of their 40 hours as a council secretary which is the city clerk. And so that was sort of that's what they're doing. 2000 in 2023 Seattle they wanted to have general counsel to be provided for their legislative department. However, with Seattle a lot of what they've done is they've actually worked a lot to create MOUs to be able to understand sort of how do they work together as departments? The law department or sorry executive council of the city council will oftentimes work with the city attorney to try to help kind of develop tandem opinions. They are also have some dissenting opinions but the official opinion of the city is from the city attorney's office. I mentioned that only because I had a really good conversation with Seattle. However, it's really hard to be able to take those learnings because once again they elect their city attorney while we do not elect directly our city attorney. So that concludes my presentation. I encourage you to look at the brief in its entirety if you want more details. I again would like to emphasize that legal questions should be addressed to the city attorney including the legal constraints as to establish independent legal counsel outside of that scope. I welcome any questions. Thank you so much for the presentation. We will go into discussion and I will recognize council member Wansley. Thank you Chair Chaudhary. First I just want to say thank you to our LRO staff for preparing this report as well as the presentation and just uplift a couple highlights from the full report that I think is important to consider as we take this information to consideration and think about next steps. This builds upon several years of discussion amongst this body. It was even raised most recently during a public hearing portion of our CAO renomination process around how council, as we're building out our legislative side of government, is also creating dedicated staff to help us meet our particular needs and that of our residents. Um in on page seven of the report, something I just want to highlight, it states that many of these positions were designated to balance or designed to balance their relationship with the mayor's administration and to ensure the council could independently assess policy, budget, and legal risk. And these offices do not represent the council separately in matters of litigation. Um it also states that across cities with independent council, the role is narrowly focused on risk management, legislative drafting, and internal legal advice. Um I believe these two sections summarize perfectly the reasons why I brought this legislative motion forward last year. Um the intent behind it was due to my own experiences with the city attorney's office regarding policy issues that I was advancing where the mayor was openly opposed um and and advancing um his opposition against. And that opposition impacted the legal support that my office received or the lack thereof and ultimately led to um the unnecessary legislative delay of critical policy measures that were meant to help us meet our climate equity goals as well as our police reform goals. Um and I can understand and appreciate having the CAO represent the city on legal matters, but I would really like to take the time to have our colleagues consider the massive benefit that we could have if we had attorneys um who helped us on our legislative side craft policies without having to weigh the political considerations of the mayor's office. And I think that section, again, on page nine, um, really helped to to put some of that in perspective. Um, I also want to note, too, and I think there has been some efforts from the city attorney's office in trying to mitigate some of these things that we've experienced, um, but knowing that there are also a variety of attorneys that we've had the privilege to work with and they have been incredibly professional and innovative as it pertains to helping us find policy solutions, um, and complementing that with their legal expertise so that we can meet our resident needs, but, um, I also don't want us to be relying on a system uh, that essentially allows for a gamble of whether or not you receive that same level of service depending on who you're assigned to. So, I think this gives us some really good next steps to think through. Um, it's interesting to see from Jackson to, as you mentioned, DC, um, the ways in which other legislative bodies have tried to tackle how to build in legal supports, um, and we're going to have lots of conversations around government structure, again, how we're going to invest in building out the legislative arm, um, and our autonomy a lot more strongly. I think this is going to be critical to helping us have thoughts on that further, you know, considerations and developments. So, thank you so much, um, for doing all this and having some fun conversations. Sounds like where you got to like nerd out about this piece. You don't hear a lot about that in government structure. I I do want to say that, um, one of the attorney, sorry, through the chair, um, to uh, Council member Warsley, one of the attorneys, um, from Seattle was, um, U of M, University of Minnesota, uh, graduate and went law school here, and so it was very nice to be able to kind of see some of the lived experience that they were able to see and kind of what their role is now. So, it is very interesting how we have so many tentacles across this great United States. Thank you. Next, I'll recognize Council Member Palmisano. Thanks for this report. Um I find it interesting and we've talked a lot about this up on this dais over the past few years, but I don't see it as something we could ever pursue without a charter change and I don't see a path or a will to accomplish that. Um even when cities say they have independent counsel, it's narrowly focused on what I would bucket as kind of administrative stuff. Um in this report, I believe you said that the city attorney's office serves both the executive and legislative branches providing a unified legal voice for the city. And I would argue that's really important. So, I just wanted to leave that there, but those are my comments and I do appreciate your work on this. It seems like you have um dug deeper and gotten facts around what a lot of other cities do um and that always informs our work. Thanks. Thank you. And I just wanted to say thanks so much for the research work that you did on this and the presentation. Very informative. Um I'm really liking what I'm seeing coming out of LRO. So, thanks for doing that. And then also just some levity, I just appreciated getting the tea on these other city councils. Sounds like a little bit of drama. But we don't know anything about that. We can laugh. It's okay. Um members, are there any other questions on this item? Okay. Seeing no further discussion, I'll ask the clerk to file that presentation. Wonderful. Now, we'll be receiving and filing the initial plans for the 2026 gubernatorial election. I'll invite Katie Smith and John Martin from Election and Voter Services for that presentation. Welcome. Thank you. Uh thank you, Chair Chaundry and members of Council. My name is Katie Smith and I am the Director of Elections and Voter Services here at the city. I'm joined by Deputy Director John Martin and together we'd like to give you a brief preview of this year's gubernatorial election plans. First of all, the items that are going to be on this time's ballot include our federal uh US Senate and US Representative seats, our state seats for governor and lieutenant governor, Secretary of State, State Auditor, Attorney General, State Senator, and State Representative. The county positions of sheriff, attorney, and commissioner. And then also I'd like to highlight that this is also a school election year. I get to see a couple of you each time when we pass the contract with the school, but it usually goes through on consent. So, I would just highlight that uh we contract with Minneapolis Special School District Number 1 and we do run their elections on their behalf. We have a great partnership. You'll also see on consent when we pass our polling place resolutions that a lot of our polls happen to also be at the school. So, I wanted to highlight that this is also a Minneapolis School Board election year. We'll have two at-large seats and then three of the district seats. And then also judicial offices will be on the ballot. Uh some key dates to highlight include those big election days, which are August the 11th for the state primary election and then November 3rd for the general election itself. Uh voting though is coming up really soon. The kickoff for voting this year is next month on June the 26th. That'll be the first day to cast a ballot in this year's primary election. That'll be the day that people can start voting at our office and also the date that will initially send out our first round of mail ballots for this year. Couple other important dates, we have our public accuracy testing ahead of each election. It's where the public can actually come into our office and watch as we do a subset of testing of the machines that are going to be used to tabulate all of our ballots. And then there's two dates there also listed for when the early voting period starts. I wanted to talk a little bit about that this year cuz it's a change that's coming that was passed in the 2023 legislative cycle for the enactment of early voting and this year will be the first year that it goes into effect. For our voters, they're not going to notice too big of a change for those that were familiar with voting during the direct balloting time frame. It's just kind of a shorter application process and moves us forward as we started seeing the ability to incorporate different changes into our system like using some of the electronic devices during the early voting time period. But again, this year for those at home who are watching, what do what do I expect when I vote early? The early voting time period is those same 18 days as the direct balloting time period was. The biggest change is a shorter form that you'll have to come out when you come in to vote, but it'll be a really similar experience where you still get to deposit your ballot directly into the tabulator. And then I wanted to speak a little bit about a lot of the planning that's been going on in the background ahead of this year's election cycle. Specifically, we've had spun up for several months now a monthly safety and security work group in-house here within the city spearheaded by our division, but also incorporating all of our partner members from other departments across the city. So other departments like the city attorney's office, the police department, our communications team, our internal team with city with the I'm sorry, with our own legislative department as well. And then also incorporating some members of the the more broad teams that we work with in fostering the election. So things like our schools and things like the police department through the parks department. We've talked about what are some of the hazards or some of the challenges that we could face during this year's election cycle and started to make mitigation plans for what would that look like on election day or if something occurred during early voting. I'd highlight that this is normal process and normal procedure that we do every election cycle. We're consistently mitigating for things like what if we're mailed something in the mail and need to respond to that. What if there's a weather issue? What if there's some sort of external influence like a cybersecurity issue. Um this year obviously it's very front and center in front of mind of what would happen if there was a threatening actor, whether that is someone who's upset at the process, upset at the system or someone from a different level of government. And we have created a coordinated response team including our partners at the county, including our partners at the state and including the legal partnerships that all three of those entities possess so that we can respond accordingly. In this response itself, I won't get really deep in the weeds. I'll just speak more broadly. The response itself is going to depend really on the what exactly is happening, what exactly happened and what does that response look like and is it something that we're addressing in the moment? Is it something that we're calling 911 and help is responding? Is it something that's going to be handled through a legal challenge or a legal process? So it will depend specifically on what exactly is occurring in that moment. And then I'll go ahead and pass it over to Deputy Director Martin. Thank you. Um so our main early vote center will be at our main office, which is located at 980 East Hennepin Avenue, and it will be operating Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and there'll be some expanded hours, including weekend hours and um, evening hours in the last 2 weeks preceding each election. Both our main site and all of our other early vote locations will both have language support options as well as voting accommodations, such as curbside voting and our express vote, which is our our assisted voting device. Uh, in addition to our early vote center, we are planning uh, two satellite locations and 11 pop-up sites for the general election. The satellite sites will be open the last 2 weeks leading up to election day for the general election. Um, there will be one satellite site in North Minneapolis at the Urban League Twin Cities, which we have used since 2016, and then another satellite site will be in South Minneapolis at Bethel Lutheran Church in uh, which we've used since 2022. For our pop-up sites, we've created a site valuation criteria that we apply when we select these pop-up locations. The selection criteria includes geography, turnout history, citizen voting age population data, um, targeting underserved communities, and then access and facility type of the various buildings that we have options to use. The goal for these sites are to meet voters where they are are at and also to reduce barriers to participation. Uh, so, this is a map of all of our pop-up locations, our satellite sites, and our main office for the general election. The um, marker in blue is our main office, our main early vote center. The satellite sites are in green, and then the red ones are the pop-up locations. You'll notice that there are only 10 listed. We did add We did have another one confirm, and so we will have 11. The 11th is is a site at People Serving People. And some of these sites have been used either in 2024, some were used in 2025, and there are are a few new ones like Sabathani is a new site for this year. Uh there will be some polling place changes, four in total. Some of the locations are just returning to the previous site following some construction that was being had, and then some will be new locations entirely. In Ward 2, Precinct 6, which is on the University of Minnesota campus, will be returning to Grace Lutheran Church. There was construction there for the 2025 election. And for Ward 4, Precinct 5, which is in the Webber-Camden neighborhood, voters will now be voting at Webber Community Center. In at Ward 6, Precinct 2, in the Elliot Park neighborhood, they'll be returning to the Elliot Park Recreation Center again. In 2025, there was some construction which caused us to move it for 1 year. And then in Ward 7, Precinct 10, which is a part of the Steven Square neighborhood, um voters will now be voting at Plymouth Church. For these changes, we plan to communicate to voters in multiple ways who are affected by these changes. This includes mailing a postal verification card to all affected registered voters in these precincts. These changes will also be featured in our citywide voter guide, which we mail out to every household in the city regardless if the household has registered voters or not in them. There'll be targeted both media and social media campaigns about these changes. And then we'll have signage at the previous locations telling folks that um these locations are no longer where where they vote and directing them to the new location. We will also be having outreach plans. Our main outreach strategy is built around both broad and targeted engagement. We have plans to attend uh right now 20 planned events including major community gatherings such as Open Streets, Juneteenth, and other cultural celebrations in in addition to some more focused smaller events with in the community. This number will no no doubt grow throughout the election as we get more and more invitations from groups to um speak or table at their events. We'll also be leveraging media through uh 22 planned media and news releases and we'll have staff um which is a year yearly occurrence go on the city's um cultural radio stations to do interviews in language on those stations. Uh there will also be targeted communication such as utilizing the University of Minnesota's student email list so we can send messages directly to students through the U of M email. Uh we'll be advertising in both neighborhood newsletters and newspapers um on a local level. We'll be working with our partners in the local high schools for high school voter outreach. And then we'll have a series of multilingual social media posts giving key election information in both English, Spanish, Hmong, and Somali. The main focus of is this is to make sure that voters are informed, prepared, and confident in the process. So, everyone here in the city is election ready. I'll pass it back to Director Smith. Uh lastly, we wanted to kind of preview our very initial uh campaign that's going to come out when it comes to our voting messaging for the year. We've had a lot of people that are really interested not only in like how can I vote, what are the different methods to vote, but how can I help and how can I get involved? And we wanted to provide uh some information that you'll see going out in a variety of ways. This is what we're going to have for flyers when we're tableing. We'll have our website updated. It's probably being updated right now actually cuz I cleared it yesterday for them to go ahead with it. And we're developing um other handouts and materials and we're getting them translated into Spanish, Hmong, and Somali. And I'll be sharing this out via constituent services to all of your offices. But, briefly, some of the messaging about how can I help? We want to share information of ways that people can contribute that's positive and a good way to get involved. There are strict Minnesota laws on who's allowed to be in a polling place. So, I know that there's been some ideas from community of maybe I can go there and maybe I can go and be supportive. But, instead of showing up at a poll, we want people to show up for each other and help in a way that's really supportive to community. And some ways to do that include sharing the accurate election information. So, I would highlight all of the different ways to connect with our office at our vote.minneapolismn.gov website and all of our social media at vote MPLS. There are still opportunities to serve as an election judge and get to work on election day or get to work early during the early voting time period. We people could provide rides to the polls. Encouraging your neighbors to make a voting plan. The best way to ensure that someone's going to vote is to have a plan in place. Helping a neighbor register or fill out the form to request an absentee ballot. Helping someone to return their ballot that they've received by the mail. Helping others to explore their different voting options. Supporting various non-partisan voter outreach efforts either through our office or through other organizations out in community. And for those who have language skills, sharing that information more broadly across languages and ensuring the messaging is really reaching all of our communities. And with that, I want to say a huge thank you to all of you and remind anyone who's listening at home of the primary August 11th, the general November the 3rd, and to check our website to find a method that works for you. And we're happy to stand for questions. Thank you so much for the presentation, both of you. We have a few members here in queue. I'll first recognize Council member Stephenson. Thank you. Um on slide eight, you list a bunch of a few pop-up locations. Will these happen ahead of the primary election? The pop-up locations, I'm sorry. Yeah. Will they be Will they happen before the primary? Via the chair, there are no pop-ups planned for the primary. Those are just for the general election. For early voting for the primary election, that'll be at our main office at 980 East Hennepin or downtown through the Hennepin County Government Center. Okay. Thank you. Next, I'll recognize Council member Warren. Thank you, chair. I'm just wondering why is there only two locations in all of North Minneapolis, one in Ward 4 and one in Ward 5, but you have multiple locations on the South side. You don't want us to come out and vote over North? Via the chair, happy to respond. One of our locations that you find in North is one of the green locations. It's open for the entire 18-day window of early voting. Uh the other one we wanted to get even further north. We do have that new one that's up in uh Ward 4. Some of the others that you see, we tried to spread them out so that there's a 18-day option on the North side and 18-day option on the South side and then a good mix around uh some key parts of the city that we that we did target like for students. >> Respectfully, if you look back at that map that you brought up, can you go back to that picture, please? Where'd that picture go? The map. Yep, you see that map? Yes, I do. Yeah, we're a little shortchanged over there. And we got that one green, which is at the Urban League Twin Cities, and one all the way at Weber Camden. Now, it's historically been recorded that, you know, North Minneapolis has lower voter turnout, but if we're not getting given the access and the ease in the access in order to improve us being able to exercise our voice as residents in North Minneapolis with such critical election things happening at this current time that will make it difficult. So, I'd like to see more opportunities present themselves for individuals to be able to get out and vote in North Minneapolis. Via the chair, thank you and thank you for your feedback. Yes. All right, next I will recognize Council Member Palmisano. Thank you for coming for this presentation. Um looking at the ballot of races on slide two reminded me of the senator seats. We have one retiring US senator on the ballot and we have our second senator who's running for governor. Can you explain to us what happens if that campaign for governor is successful? Is there then a special election the following year or how is that seat filled? Via the chair, yes, that's exactly right. Um should that seat be vacated next year, it would prompt a special election. There would be a special next August as a primary and next November as a general for that seat. So, it would be an entire year process. Um via the chair, yes, there'd be an appointment in the interim and then that would be the election to fill the seat for the remainder of the vacancy. And do you happen to recall how long that vacancy goes? Uh I mean, sorry, how long that term is? How long is Senator Klobuchar's term through? 2028. Via the chair, it's through 2028. I see. Um thank you. You know, top of mind and something I hear from place to place where I go is about um elections integrity and people's concerns about outside influences. You talked a little bit about that already. Um I have people asking me what they can do now to ensure safe and accurate elections and more importantly how to secure the democracy of our local elections. Um, I heard what you said about offering rides and helping people to make a voting plan. Is there anything else I should be telling them? Uh, via the chair, yes, I think that that information that's going to come out about different ways that you can participate also ensures that democracy is being supported. It's making sure that anyone who doesn't feel safe and comfortable going to the polling place knows that they have options to vote by mail. It's ensuring that if someone doesn't feel comfortable going alone, maybe you're willing to accompany your neighbor and go with. So, in that way that is a one of the methods of supporting democracy. Um, another way and it's kind of mentioned in that is getting involved. So, understanding the process, working as an election judge, working during early voting and seeing all of the different safe holds that are in place and then sharing that experience with your friends and family. So, when you're hearing something of like, "Hey, I don't know if I trust the process." you have that information. You can say, "No, you know, I served as a judge. I was there. I was a part of it." And it really is like we say it a little bit and it's a little silly, the your city, your vote. That's our messaging, but it really is like our our local elections are run by the people. And so, getting to be a part of the process and see the process makes even more trust within the process itself. Thank you. Thank you. Next, I will recognize Council Member Wonsley. Thank you, Chair Chaudry. I did just want to get further clarification. I can't recall if you mentioned this piece of the dates for the pop-ups. I think that has been such a tremendous asset towards activating um, residents, especially in historically lower uh, voter turnout um, areas. I will note it has been such a beneficial asset in Ward 2 and particularly getting our student voters um, activated and and excited to exercise, you know, their democratic rights in this way of casting a vote. I mean, have seen historic upticks in voter turnout as a result of that. So, just want to get a sense of when dates will be publicized for these early pop-ups or if they're already up on the website. Uh Mr. Chair, uh Council Member Wansley, no, they're not published yet. We're just still trying to solidify two of them. Uh one we're just trying to make sure that they can find a date that works for us. So, we don't have them set or official yet. We didn't want to put them out and have to change them. But, as soon as they're uh solid and available, we can send them out. Great. Only question I had. Thanks. >> Thank you. Thank you. Um there are no other questions um here before us. And so, I'll just say thank you so much for all of your work in preparation for the election this year. I know it's a really big lift um especially coming off the heels of the last election. I think we're perhaps getting a break from elections in the city at some point. Um I'm not sure which election year that is going to be, but uh appreciate all of your work and um yeah, would love to continue the conversation about just like security and what we're keeping in mind this year that feels different. I know that Secretary Simon has um gone on uh different media outlets to talk about Minnesota being on the cutting edge of thinking about election security and what goes into ensuring our democracy. And so, I'm sure we'll have more of those conversations coming forward. So, just thank you so much for your presentation and your work. Thank you. With that, I will ask the clerk to file that presentation. Now, we are on our last item. This is to receive a report regarding the internal review of the shooting of Davis Matari. I will invite up the Chief of Police, Chief O'Hara, for that presentation. Welcome up, Chief. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Thank you. Chair, good afternoon. My name is Brian O'Hara, and I am the Police Chief. Um We are here today to present, um both, uh the internal review of an after-action report of the shooting of Mr. Davis Matori, as well as what was learned from that, and the actions that the department has taken since. To begin, uh let me just be clear that the shooting of Mr. Matori should not have happened. It should have been preventable. In October of 2024, shortly after Mr. Matori was shot, I committed to a thorough review of every aspect of this escalating dispute between these two neighbors, including all aspects of the department's response and follow-up. Now, since then, there's been two reviews that have been conducted. One is a comprehensive and independent review that was not conducted by the police department, and that was conducted by the city auditor. I'm grateful for that thorough and professional work completed by the city auditor. The work we are presenting today is separate from that report, but it's information that was also provided to the auditor. The information today is the internal after-action review that was conducted by members of the police department. In a police department and in public safety in general, an after-action review seeks to answer essentially four questions. One is to gather all of the facts about what happened. Two is to determine um among those facts, what do we think was supposed to happen at each point. Three would be to identify any reasons why there's a gap between the two, what actually happened and we what we thought should have happened. Identifying the processes and systems that were involved. And then lastly, number four, is to identify uh opportunities to resolve those problems and make improvements. So, the work presented today reflects changes that have been made and is intended to ensure that we have enhanced processes and coordination going forward. Oftentimes, uh I think with after-action reviews and I think is the case here, um there are times where there is a lack of coordination. And that typically occurs at the seams of some of these events, whether things are being handed off internally from patrol or to an investigative unit, or externally uh between members of the department and and other agencies. And I think it's clear both uh during this review and also um from the city city auditor's report, that there was a lot of action that was taken by members of the department. The members of the department did did care and did make attempts to try and resolve the situation. But what is also clear, um, is that what we did was just not enough. And, um, as chief of the police department, I am the person, uh, sitting in the chair while this occurred. And as I have previously stated, we failed Mr. Matori. Um, you know, if Mr. Matori is listening, uh, I would just want to be clear, um, about that. That this department under my leadership failed you. Uh, that I am sorry for that. That this review and what we've learned from, uh, the city auditor made clear that despite efforts that were made, despite processes in place, the department was not effective at at resolving the situation and preventing this shooting. So, I am sorry for that failure, and I'm sorry for the impact this had both on Mr. Matori, his family, and on the community. That being said, we must commit to being a learning organization. Uh, and I want people in the community to know, uh, just like Mr. Matori, his families, that these shortcomings are driving meaningful changes within this department. And that's what we're here to talk about today. It's also important when we conduct the after-action review and we're talking about the facts to understand the context in which we were operating. This happened and escalated during the spring and summer of 2024. That is the period where the department fell to the lowest, uh, level of staffing for sworn members in decades. Uh, our investigations, uh, bureau was at essentially half, uh, the number of personnel that they had typically had prior to 2020 Uh, were were overloaded with cases. The processes and systems that were in place for normal circumstances were not effective in these conditions. And uh you know, adding to that was simply a lack of a specialty team dedicated to apprehending violent offenders. And so, as we go through this today we're going to go through a timeline and a summary of all of the key events, the 911 calls, the police response, members of department who attempted to involve others and outside entities to try and resolve things. And I'm going to have Commander Markstrom who led the internal review go through that portion. Then, I will come up and talk about um the big picture of the after-action review, the four questions that I mentioned earlier, and what we're doing to try and fix things. And then we'll we'll finish up by speaking about the neighbor-to-neighbor program, which is something that has emerged from this. So, with that, I will bring up Commander Markstrom to actually go through his review. Thank you. Just about me straight here. I'm right there. Okay. Good afternoon, Council Chair. Good afternoon, Council members. I'm Ralph Markstrom. I'm a Commander with the Minneapolis Police Department. On uh October 29th, 2024, the Chief's office requested that I look into an internal review of the uh situations that led up to Davis Mettury being shot. Um in this review, I looked over 14 months of records both in PIMS, which is our records management system, which all our reports are held in, as well as in VisiNet, which is the dispatch database that we use for recording all of our 911 calls. In addition to that, I did conduct interviews with some key players involved in the situation. Um I just want to go through a high-level timeline here. Uh before I get started, I just want to note that um of those uh 14 months of records, there were 43 um entries in VisiNet, which is our 911 dispatch system, and 21 reports written in our Impims, in our reporting uh database. Um So, starting out in August 2023, when the Maturis moved into their house on Grand, through December of 2023, the Maturis moved in, and this is when we first started getting our uh recorded calls for service. Um as we move forward through January of 2024 through March of 2024, um Mr. Maturi experienced repeated harassment um incidents from his neighbor, Sawatzky, and during this time uh the first documented weapon threats and feces incidents, which I'll explain what those are in a little bit, started to occur. Um as we go up in the timeline to uh April 2024 through June of 2024, um we we see multiple 911 um calls for threats and assaults. I do want to point note that second point, a harassment restraining order or harassment restraining order HRO was recommended but not yet filed. It was recommended. It was filed on uh on or about April 8th of uh 2024, and then it was uh served administratively by publication um in May of 2024. Um Also during this time, the Hennepin County Attorney's Office declined felony charges. A case was resubmitted to the city attorney, and gross misdemeanor charges were filed on Sawatzky. Um as we move forward from July of 2024 through October of 2024, um felony terroristic threats charge were charged by the Hennepin County Attorney's Office against Sotchek. Um our REACT team started uh surveillance on Sotchek's residence in an attempt to uh take him into custody. And for those who don't know what our REACT team is, it's the South Side REACT team. It's a team of officers that work both uniform and plain clothes, and they conduct surveillance and attempt apprehensions on on suspects. Um during this time multiple threats uh continued um to Mr. Maturi from Sotchek. Um an MPD investigator attempted to call the family of Sotchek to help try to de-escalate the situation. The only family member we were able to uh find was his mother, and we learned that his mother had since passed away. Um and then in this final note on that uh block, it says the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office was requested to assist with a PC pickup of Sotchek. Should more correctly read that the Fifth Precinct uh inspector inquired with the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office about their process for serving um Mr. Meiner warrants and harassment restraining orders. Um on Oct- October 23rd, Mr. Maturi was shot while cutting a tree down in his yard. Um MPD responded to the hospital, um realizing that he had been shot. At this point, 24-hour surveillance began at Mr. Sotchek's residence. Um and then as we go from October to November, uh Sotchek was apprehended on October 27th, and MPD continued with the investigation and started the internal review. All right. Um with our initial contact starting in October of 2023, when the Maturis moved in, um this is when we first got the first reported uh calls of harassment and threats, and the first police calls that were logged. Um this is when early conflict started with the neighbor Sotchek, and an early pattern of agitation began with Sotchek towards Mr. Maturi. Um Patrol responded to the initial calls for service and officers started advising Mr. Maturi on the restraining order process. During this time, no criminal charges were filed and no restraining order was filed and the conflict conflict between Mr. Maturi and Sawchuk continued. In January of 2024 through March of 2024, um there were an an increased frequency of calls for service. This included uh noises at night, trash can banging, and yelling. Um Sawchuk yelling at Mr. Maturi. Um during this time, we had the first weapons-related report. Uh Mr. Sawchuk threatened Mr. Maturi with a wooden pole and the feces incidents began. And as I noted earlier, I'd explained this. So, the uh the suspect in this case, Sawchuk, started leaving feces on Mr. Maturi's property, including on his front doorstep and putting it into his mailbox slot. Um Sawchuk's aggressive behavior and erratic behavior um continued. Um There were multiple 911 patrol responses. Um the fifth precinct embedded social worker attempted to reach outreach to Sawchuk, but she was unable to make contact with him. And um our embedded attorney at the fifth precinct did make contact with Mr. Maturi. Um during this time, um on 3/11, uh Mr. Maturi reported uh harassment. Uh the charges were submitted to the Hennepin County Attorney's Office and declined, but they were resubmitted to the city attorney and a gross misdemeanor harassment charges were filed and a warrant put out for his arrest in April. Um But at yet this point, by the end of March of 2024, no harassment order had been filed. Moving forward in April of 2024 through June of 2024, um we had a couple of incidents uh occur. Uh the first occurred on on April 8th. Um officers responded to a fight call uh that was called in by a neighbor of Mr. Maturi and Sawchuk. Um Officers arrived to find Mr. Maturi and Sawchuk in a uh physical confrontation with one another. Um they The officers separated the parties. One officer spoke with Mr. Maturi, another officer spoke with uh Sawchuk. Mr. Maturi immediately told the officer speaking with him that Sawchuk had a had a warrant, and this he was referring to a fifth-degree um assault warrant not related to not related to the Maturi-Sawchuk situation. Um and the officer continued to try to talk to Mr. Maturi just to try to get some more context and and more information about what was going on, as this was the first time that these two particular officers had dealt with uh the situation involving uh Mr. Maturi and Sawchuk. Um the officer speaking with Sawchuk uh found him to be uncooperative. He refused to identify himself, and um he did have some minor injuries from the altercation. Um ambulance was called to the scene. Um the officer speaking with Sawchuk momentarily stepped away to talk to the ambulance uh operators, and um while he did so, at that point Sawchuk retreated inside his residence and locked himself inside his residence, and they were not able to reestablish contact with him at that time. They later learned after running him that he did in fact have that uh misdemeanor warrant out for his arrest. And then I just like to point out another situation uh during this time frame. On June 11th of 2024, um St. Paul police was assisting uh Minneapolis police under a mutual aid as um MPD officers, in particular fifth precinct officers, where this uh incident uh where these series of incident were occurred were were a funeral of a fifth precinct officer who had been killed in the line of duty. So, St. Paul officers were assisting us with answering 911 calls that that day and they were not aware of the history. Um As far as actions that uh were taken at this time during this time frame, the Minneapolis police, the city attorney, community navigators, crime prevention specialist, the embedded social worker, and the council members were all engaged in conversations on what best way to deal with the uh situation that was uh developing and continued to uh develop between Mr. Maturi and Sawchuk. Um Attempts to serve the warrants um number one, the uh the misdemeanor warrant from a uh prior incident. I'm sorry. No, I'm still I'm I'm still back on that one. Yeah. That's okay, I'm still back on that one. Yeah. Um And on the gross misdemeanor warrant were unsuccessful. Um Officers began to conduct surveillance and directed patrol um on Sawchuk's residence in attempt to pick him up on the warrants um but weren't able to do so as he didn't never exited his residence. Um During this time frame uh Mr. uh Maturi reported a terroristic threats on 4/22 of '24, this case was submitted to the Hennepin County Attorney's Office but it was declined for charging. Um All right. This first name okay. And the case wasn't referred to the embedded social worker at the fifth precinct. She did make um multiple attempts to contact Mr. Sawchuk without success. And um I did learn from the embedded social worker's manager that uh it's a voluntary program and nobody can be forced to participate in the in the program that they were offering. All right, and it says no harassment restraining order filed. That is But as I noted Oh, that's on the next page. My apologies. Um All right, then April of 2024 through June of 2024. All right, we are No excuse. Okay, sorry about that. Sorry, July through October. Um During this time frame on During this time frame on 10 14, I just want to point out a another call. On 10 14, um Sacheck came to firearm at Mr. Maturi. Mr. Mr. Maturi, um reported this case to the MPD, and I just want to point out that this case was not assigned to an investigator until 10 24 of that uh of that month. Um This was actually the day after Mr. Maturi was shot. Um And uh I just want to point out that during that time frame, the assault unit, which is where this case would have been routed, um consisted of only one lieutenant and three investigators. And in uh the year of 2024, 4,589 cases were routed to the assault unit. Um As of today, there are six sworn investigators, one civilian investigator, and one lieutenant. Um But also during this time frame of July through October, on August 8th, um terroristic threats was reported, and it was submitted to the county attorney and declined. On 7 2, an assault with a dangerous weapon case was reported. That was submitted to the Hennepin County Attorney's Office and charged, and Mr. Sacheck was charged with two counts of felony threats. Um a felony warrant was issued. Our REACT team, as I explained earlier, started surveillance on Sawchuk's property in an attempt to take him into custody. Um the REACT team conducted surveillance uh 20 plus times on Sawchuk's property during this time frame. Um the REACT supervisor, Lieutenant Lapinsky, uh made contact with Mr. Materion provided him his cell phone and requested that he call him directly rather than go through 911 if he sees Sawchuk emerging from his property to be more efficient with getting officers responding to the property. Um also, in addition, 911 patrols respond um to calls and the suspect routinely retreats into his home before officers arrive. Um also, during this time frame, the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office attempted to serve the felony warrant on 911 and 1015 um without success. Um when I talked to the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office, they did note they'd been attempting to serve uh Sawchuk um with warrants since 2015 unsuccessfully. And they did note at the time um when I spoke with them in 2024 that they had approximately 20,000 unserved warrants in Hennepin County that um needed to be served. Um Then on October 23rd, Mr. Materion shot by John Sawchuk. Um the MPD re- uh responded to the Hennepin County Medical Center. The investigation is launched and at this point 24-hour surveillance began of Sawchuk's residence. Um the shooting was confirmed. Sawchuk was identified as the suspect. This incident became a catalyst for a high priority coordinated effort to take him into custody. And uh at that point um I will have uh in just a little bit I'll have Commander Campbell come and talk about the tactical response to that incident. In October 2024 through November 2024 Sacha was barricaded and barely visible inside his residence. Um around the clock surveillance started on October 24th through the 27th. Sacha is apprehended and MPD starts the internal review of interviews of key personnel and the review of 14 months of records. With Sacha in custody MPD then with the review identifies systemic issues with our warrant service, investigative bandwidth, and limitations of existing services. At this point I'd like to turn it over to Commander Campbell who's going to talk about the tactical response involved with taking John Sacha into custody. Uh good afternoon chair and council members. My name is Thomas Campbell and I'm the commander of the special operations division that oversees the SWAT team, the bomb unit, canine unit, drone unit, negotiators, and the tech team that were used for the warrant execution for Mr. Sacha. Within my command risks are high and responsibility to the community and to the to my personnel is massive. And I take pride in what I and my teams do every day. As the division commander I'm constantly balancing mission success, community safety, suspect rights, and officer safety. Two frameworks that guide those decisions are the critical decision-making critical decision-making model and the principles of sanctity of life. They work together and they work together. The critical decision-making model provides the process of how I do my job and while sanctity of life defines the priority of the incident. Why is this important? I use this model every day and I used it for the decisions that I had to make for the Sa Sa check warrant execution that night. The model guides me and the MPD to gather information, assess the risks, consider our authority to act, identify our options, act, review, reassess again, and all prioritizing the sanctity of life. Together they reduce unnecessary force in what we do. They improve our operational outcomes and limits community harm. On Wednesday, October 23rd, I was advised and learned that Mr. Mature was shot. On Thursday, October 24th, 24-hour surveillance on his address began. The gun investigation unit and the Southeast side rack team conducted that 24-hour surveillance with the idea of taking him into custody or developing intelligence for a search warrant. This is the lowest level of force expected to take him into custody away from his home. This is the best practices to help eliminate any escalation of force or violence. This is also to avoid a full SWAT team call out. A mobile camera was also added to the front of his address to watch for any movements. The suspect was then at that time known to be a person in crisis with significant mental health concerns. A request was made to our B-TAT unit, which is also known as the Behavioral Threat Assessment Team, and we asked them to complete a workup on Mr. Sa check. The MPD requested assistance from also our our contracted psychologist or psychiatrist. At that time also I was made aware that Mr. Sa check is known to have access to knives and firearms. He also is known to have a military background and experience with explosives. The last thing that was noted was that he was known as a a recluse. Doesn't come out of his house very often. On Friday, October 25th, uh the surveillance continued. Um this was to minimize the escalation of force once again to a person in crisis. Uh this is important to note because our MPD policy 7-803, crisis intervention, states that people in crisis or people with mental health conditions, behavioral health challenges may require a tailored response and support. Additionally, the MDHR settlement agreement requires that prior to a search warrant, pre-warrant surveillance results about the residents and their activities must be documented. We continued to isolate the suspect um by putting start we started placing no parking signs um in the neighborhood along the entire block of um on Grand. That was for community safety. We didn't want anybody pulling onto the block, parking in front of his address, walking in front of his address while we were trying to isolate him. And it was also to facilitate a police operation if a warrant was signed. On Saturday, October 26th, a search warrant was signed by a judge. I was notified and I know then notified my teams to build out personnel. I advised to build out a SWAT team, uh two separate SWAT teams, the drone unit, the negotiators, the bomb unit, our mobile command tech team, and additional perimeter officers. On Sunday, October 27th, the search warrant planning had begun using our risk assessment and information off of the search warrant. Um I received a call from the Deputy Chief uh Kingsbury and he had stated that the chief had now ordered that we execute the warrant that night. Uh a briefing was held by myself um at 1900 hours at the SOC with all teams, which approximated 45 personnel, um along with fire and EMS. In that briefing, I discussed how we were going to execute the warrant, our warrant progression, our team roles, radio channels, the route to the address, medical plans, and also investigator information. After the briefing, we all convoyed as a group down to the address. Uh once on site, which was approximately 2000 hours, we locked down the entire area, which included 35th Street, Harriet to Pleasant, 36th Street, Harriet to Pleasant, and the 3500 block of Grand. This again was to keep people who were uninvolved safe and out of our area of operation. Perimeter officers also attempted to knock and talk with neighbors in the area and asked them to either leave or shelter in place. Um I was notified that most decided to stay within their homes. Our command post was set up at 36 Harriet to Grand. And our operation um was held out of the mobile command one uh command truck. Within the truck was our operational leadership. Um inside that truck, we have the ability to look at mobile cameras that were already set up in the front of the address, the rear of the address, and also we had live uh drone streaming available to us inside that command truck. The progression of our warrant uh was our presence first. Uh we decided or I decided that we would do a surround and call out. With that, I had one armored BearCat in the front of the address with an LRAD, which is a long-range acoustical device. Um also that was mirrored in the rear of the address. All vehicles had red and uh red and blue lights activated. Uh we also deployed snipers in the front and rear of the address um as a point of um attempting to look inside the address uh to give us any information. Um along with the the LRAD, we advised Mr. Sawchuk numerous times over the LRAD that he was under arrest. The orders we gave him were very specific in how to exit his address. Everything was slow and deliberate. instructions were very clear. Many L rad announcements were made throughout the evening. Um It should note that the front when we arrived on scene at 20:43 hours in the front yard of his his home. We did breach the front door at 20:59 hours with the Bearcat push bar after receiving no response from inside the address. Um as the night progressed it should be noted that Mr. Saatchi's home is a considered a fourplex has four separate units. However, he had access to every unit inside the inside the building. Um We we started to systematically um open windows and doors by use of our Bearcat push bar. Um that was done to introduce a throw phone initially for our negotiators to make contact with him. Uh because the hails from our L rad were unsuccessful. Along on the throw phone isn't just a communication device it also has cameras on it so it allows us to see inside his home as well. Uh our negotiators rang that phone continually throughout the operation with no response from Mr. Saatchi. Um the opening of windows and doors also allowed us to enter technology into his address. We used drones to fly throughout his throughout his home. Again, we never saw any indication that he was there. I believe his TV was on on one of the units but we never had any indication that Mr. Saatchi was there. Um Uh forms of de-escalation that we did attempt before each port. You know we did advise Mr. Saatchi what we were doing because we knew he was a man in crisis. Um You know we advised him hey we're going to we're going to break another window if you do not come out so we would if we wouldn't get any response we would break a window um and try to communicate again with him. Tactical pauses were also done throughout the evening. Um That is where I had my officers turn all the trucks off, everybody turn their radios down and to see if we could hear him inside maybe hollering out from from an area wherever he was. But again, we didn't hear a thing. It is my my true belief that we gave him every opportunity to surrender. Again, no indication was ever ever um um we we received no indication that he was even in the home. No response, no movements. Um once we cleared the main floor and upstairs of his residence, uh we moved to the basement. Um I guess I should note that everything that we had seen in his residence was uh falls in line with somebody who um is I would say a kind of on the hoarder side. Very very messy. Everything in there was messy. Um and that that would continue down to the basement. Um we we attempted to fly a drone into the basement. Um it was so cluttered um that we actually lost it. A drone actually crashed on there, so we lost our our drone in the basement. Um being that it was so cluttered, we decided to continue to um move into the uh the basement windows. We broke the first window out. We broke the window, made another announcement with the LRAD, and then this time we we followed that um announcement with a threat of using chemical munitions. Um that threat of chemical munitions was just enough to make him probably think twice, and he shouted out to our um one of our SWAT teams that he had surrendered and he would exit the his home. Uh within a few minutes, he walked out the rear door, and we took him into custody at approximately 1:30 in the morning, uh which would total about 5 and 1/2 hours of total time on scene. And that would uh conclude my tactical brief. Thank you, Chair. So, chair um Commander Marksum went through his review uh summarizing all of the dozens of calls and police responses. Commander Campbell gave an overview of all of the steps that were taken during the arrest process. What I'm going to move into now is really the heart of what the purpose of an after-action review is and it's again getting back to those four points. What actually happened? What do you think was supposed to happen? Why was there a discrepancy between the two and what are we doing about it? So, looking at some of the higher level themes here, um there were some officers that responded that were aware of the situation. Uh they were aware both from having been briefed at roll call, they had responded more than once. They had gone at times and conducted directed patrols in attempts to erect arrest Mr. Soucek. But then there were other officers that were not aware of what was happening. Um so, in this uh first line, first column, officers should be aware. That would be an expectation that we would have that if there's a trend regarding violence or escalating crime between neighbors, they should be aware of that to a location to which they are responding. But the actual outcome was there were times where police officers did not know the underlying history. They had not responded there previously at all. Um and so, the discrepancy here in the cars that police have, there's computers in them and police officers do have the ability to manually go through and conduct searches both in the PIMS, the police report system, and also in the CAD, the computer-aided dispatch system. That's often not done, uh particularly when there are concerns around response times. Um at times, a dispatcher is aware and they are able to send the officer a message or alert the officer over the over the air. Um but typically it is just not feasible for an officer to manually try and search for this information. And so really the the way that we're looking to go is to identify improvements in technology so that our officers will have this information quickly and be alerted to that while they were while they are responding. Um and so part of what's happening that's included with within this is we've sent out a request for information around a new records management system because that's also needed for purposes of complying with the settlement agreement and the consent decree. And so we're hoping in that process we will be able to update and have that as one of the requirements that this capacity could be automated that we would be able to set parameters in there around repeat addresses so that officers would receive an alert even if it's not prompted by the dispatcher and without having to manually do searches of the address or of persons while they're responding. The second line on there the residents of Mr. Maturi and Sawchuk should have been flagged because of the high volume of calls. So there's two two ways to think about this and and I'm speaking of actually both of them. Um the address was the addresses were flagged in the CAD in April of 2024 and that flag is an alert that that alerts the dispatcher when they're sending the officer that there is a potential hazard and then information can be entered in there. Um separately there is the ability to um to manually search to have our analysts manually search repeat addresses repeat victims repeat offenders. And that is also a separate way that that we're trying to address this as well. So, in terms of the CAD flags, uh previously only supervisors had the the ability to do that and it was not widely used at this time. So, now we have the strategic analysis unit, that's our civilian analysts. Uh at least weekly they are running addresses and they are sending alerts to the precinct inspectors to ensure that the precinct inspectors are aware of repeat addresses and particular uh issues around neighbor troubles that that that need to be escalated so that the precinct inspectors are aware. Additionally, uh uh Bureau Chief Martin will speak on the the mediation pilot program that we have uh as well as uh like I mentioned earlier, allowing all personnel to flag uh in the CAD, the computer-aided dispatch center, uh uh addresses. So, the investigative cases there were police reports um that were taken and obviously many of them resulted in investigations and uh the investigations capacity was just overwhelmed at this time. At this time there were half the number of investigators uh as what we had in 2020 and particularly the assault unit was staffed with three investigators, but during the summer of 2024 between vacations and uh family leave, at times there were only two investigators assigned. Um so, there were several incidents incidents that were either not assigned to an investigator or simply not escalated uh to leadership. And that's uh both a lack of the investigative capacity that existed and also uh a lack of coordination between patrol uh and the investigative component. So, with that again, uh as I mentioned in the previous slide, the analysts are looking at these addresses and looking at the reports that come through that and flagging those to ensure that the inspector is aware. Additionally, uh at this time there were three investigators assigned to assault. That number has been doubled now. There's six investigators, a lieutenant, and a civilian civilian investigator assigned as well. Another issue that came up that was noted is there there were actions taken by both patrol officers as well as Southside the Southside react team. However, their actions were not consistently documented. Some of the officers drove by the address in between calls, but did not log it in the CAD. And there wasn't a consistent consistent and uniform way across the department where people did that. So often times officers did conduct directed patrols in between 911 calls for service, but they did not make a CAD entry in order for it in order for them to be available for calls. But at the same time it it ultimately did not result in that proactive activity being logged. So officers have been directed to ensure that they use the directed patrol function in the CAD. And that supervisors will disrupt officers on directed patrols if a higher priority call comes in. Um and that's something that's a significant focus of this is is the response times. That was a very significant issue during this time as as I stated and there's been a lot of work that's been done since then to address that. And there's some slides coming up where where I'll talk about that. So utilizing search warrants in addition to arrest warrants when appropriate. Ultimately a felony arrest warrant was issued by July of 2024. Leadership at the time at the precinct level in attempt to de-escalate the situation, they started off with surveillance, sending the react team, having officers conduct uh directed patrol directed patrols in attempt to arrest the person outside the residence. That was not successful. Um police are allowed to force entry when there is a felony level arrest warrant. Uh the conditions under the law for that to happen uh are it has to be the person's residence. Uh the person has to have a felony warrant. You have to confirm that. And you have to have probable cause to believe that the person is there at this time. And that was um very consistently a problem even even as we had Commander Campbell just mentioned even during the arrest process uh it was very difficult for uh members of the special operations team to determine to actually verify that the person was inside at the time. So the the department's warrant policies both for arrests and search warrants is being updated. That's pursuant to the MDHR agreement. And uh the entire department will be retrained in arrests and warrant policies once that's once that's approved. Another problem obviously was mentioned earlier is the timely executed timely execution of warrants, arrest warrants. Uh the commander noted uh nearly 20,000 active warrants in the county. Uh a problem internally is for a few years since 2020 we did not have a single entity in the department dedicated to apprehending wanted violent persons. Um so this year we've brought back our violent criminal apprehension team. That's the entity that existed prior to 2020. It is back now. That's the one place that patrol and investigators can turn to that specializes in simply arresting people, finding people and arresting people. Uh during this time there were several uh entities that just did not exist. And so there was a reliance on the south side react team which is the proactive team for all of Southside to try and step in and make that and and make that uh arrest. So, the the VCAT team has been established and they routinely coordinate with the Sheriff's Office to ensure that uh pickups uh and and wanted persons are arrested. Timely response by police. Response time uh has been a significant problem since 2020. Uh it has greatly improved uh over the last uh over the last year or so or so. Um but response times during this period um were were excessive. Uh there were times where calls were not dispatched for hours. There were other times where the response uh was immediate. Uh but in general, uh you know, the staffing shortages, the increased volume of calls, and the increased volume of violent crime that required multiple police officers to be on scene uh was a challenge to the response times. So, there's a lot of things that have been done since then uh to address this. Um you know, as of today, for this year, there's a one lieutenant 24 hours a day that monitors all calls for service citywide. There's a lot of things that we've done uh to ensure accountability at the patrol level, at the supervisory level, to ensure that officers are clearing calls uh as quickly as possible, that they are being disrupted when higher priorities come in. We have our precinct inspectors have to report on response times every week uh at MSTAT. Um and we are very close uh to meeting the response time goals um that that were typical here prior to 2020. So, this next uh this next slide is simply about talking about documenting communication. Uh what was particularly prevalent during this time is that there were just so many cases and with staffing being low, that there were a lot of conversations that happened that were not able to be accessed later. So, there were times that you know, that the investigators did turn over cases for charges. However, not every case for example could be charged as a felony. Um and so there were instances where then we had the ability to turn it over to the city attorney's office. Um simply because not all cases reported as felonies meet the elements of the offense for felonies. Um and we're just ensuring going forward that our investigative procedures have been updated so that all of those conversations around evidence and this type of thing with prosecutors is documented in the system so they can be accessed later if there's any questions. So, here are priority one median response times. So, these are looking at the types of calls that were involved that we're talking about today. The to the left of that first dotted red line are the calls going during the time period that we're talking about ending when Mr. Maturi is shot. And these types of calls are neighbor troubles, assault in progress, damaged property in progress, fights, person with a gun, person with a weapon, and threats. During that time you can see the average response time citywide for these calls. Neighbor troubles during this time during just this time period that first the first bar there were 1,794 neighbor trouble calls, 6,195 assaults, 2,426 calls for threats and 8,471 suspicious person calls. You can see afterwards and priority one are are the emergency calls. That's the calls typically uh the the goal we have set today is to try and respond in 7 minutes or less to these emergencies. Uh and so these are uh when when these types of events are in progress and it's the the highest level of response. And you can see since then we have declined quite significantly uh and as of this quarter we are very close uh to meeting that seven seven-minute goal. The next slide is the priority two response times and these are specific uh nature codes that were involved uh in in this incident. So, neighbor trouble, assault in progress, damage to property, fight, uh and and those types of calls. Um you can see the average time is over an hour at the time when Mr. Maturi was shot. Today, the average time for these types of calls uh is close uh close to the goal that we want of of 20 minutes. And this is uh these two charts are looking at all calls for service in general. Um the top one is priority one, the emergency calls. The bottom one is priority two. And you can see on there of all priority two calls, we are about just about under our goal today of 20 minutes or less on average for the entire city. And priority one, those are the emergency calls citywide. You can see we had one week where we did dip under seven minutes. Um but we are close to to meeting that seven-minute goal. And last, I'll just invite up uh Bureau Chief Martin to give a an overview of the community mediation program. Good afternoon, chair and members of the council. Uh my name is Genesha Mardon. I'm the bureau chief of constitutional policing. Uh and as uh chief mentioned, I'm going to go over the neighbor uh to neighbor um program. Um I'm honored to be uh before you um sad uh in these circumstances uh under which a member of our community has been so harmed. Uh our house should be a place of peace, of safety, and of refuge, not one of anxiety, terror, and fear, uh which is what the Matoories experienced for way too long. When I um got here, um Chief and AC Gators um handed me a piece of paper and said uh make this happen. Um and so at that time I contacted uh President uh Cynthia um and started to learn about um the program that UMCT and the NAACP uh put together. Um it was an outgrowth, as I'm sure many of you all know, from work that started in in 2003, um and something that the NAACP was um doing in part, uh not in partnership with the police department, but they had similar programs. Um so what I'm going to do is I'll describe the program. I'll tell you a little bit about the process. Um and then there I also have some facts on the timeline. Uh so the purpose of the program is to prevent neighbor disputes from escalating into criminal or violent situations, strengthen community relations, and empower residents to resolve conflicts independently. The neighbor-to-neighbor mediation pilot program is a collaborative effort between MPD and NAACP to address neighbor disputes through early intervention and community-based mediation. The program emphasizes proactive outreach, consistent case tracking, and ongoing coordination between MPD and the NAACP. This initiative seeks to resolve conflicts before they escalate, reduce repeat calls for service, and strengthen community relations. Um, the process that MPD goes through uh before it sends it over to the NAACP, a crime analyst conducts weekly reviews of CAD calls identifying incidents codes as neighbor trouble and pulls data from those calls. The analyst then compiles this information into a weekly report and distributes distributes it to each precinct crime prevention specialist based on the incident location. Crime prevention specialist then review the report and search PIMS for any additional or supporting details related to the listed calls. Within 3 business days, the crime prevention specialist attempt initial contact with the involved parties to assess the current status uh whether the issue has been resolved, escalated, or remains unchanged. If mediation appears appropriate, the CPS uh informs the parties that a representative from the NAACP will be in contact. The community engagement team also receives and reviews the weekly report. When mediation is a viable option, the crime prevention specialist consult with their supervisors and the community engagement team to refer to NAACP. The community engagement team then emails uh Ms. Cynthia with the necessary contact information for both parties so outreach can begin. After that review and follow up, the situation appears to have escalated to a potential criminal matter and mediation is no longer a viable option, the CPS specialist consult with precinct leadership and their supervisors to determine the next steps. Uh the NAACP's process is as follows. Upon receiving referrals from MPD, the NAACP reviews each case to determine whether it's appropriate. If mediation is pursued, uh the NAACP contacts the parties to see if they're willing. If both parties agree, NAACP conducts an orientation session led by their lead mediator, Miss uh Cynthia Wilson, to explain the process, set expectations, and build trust. The NAACP then facilitates structured 4-hour mediation sessions. The mediation team typically includes a lead mediator, a co-mediator, and three mediator assistants. During sessions, trained mediators use active listening, guided dialogue, de-escalation techniques, and collaborative problem-solving strategies to ensure mediation is culturally relevant and community-informed, the NAACP partners with UMCT and collaborates with culturally specific community organizations. Uh this data is tracked. Um so, we have a monthly meeting with MPD uh and NAACP. Our next meeting happens to be tomorrow. Um we examine the cases included in the weekly report that were not referred for mediation along with the reasons why. Um the team maintains a tracking system that logs each case, including the date it was assigned to the CPS, the date it was referred to the NAACP, current mediation status, the mediation session outcomes, the dates, and if applicable, the date and reason the case returned to MPD, for example, if there was violence uh that uh occurred. The CPS specialists are informed of the case outcomes to support further situational um knowledge. Um at this time, about five cases have been referred over to the NAACP um for them to review. Um we did have um a time where we really had to work on the contract. Um, I don't know you probably are aware, but um, there is I think it's a new um, policy um, where you have to get cyber security um, insurance. And in my short time here, I have seen that that is a difficult for people uh, and small businesses and folks that don't have huge budgets. So, that was um, something that we had to deal with here. Um, but otherwise um, the program is up and running and this was set up as a pilot. Uh, so we are trying to um, take down all of the information that we can. So, that by the time the end of the pilot happens, we can actually, you know, assess its efficacy and see if it actually did what it was intended to do. Um, and I'm sure we'll be back before you all with those results. Thank you so much. >> Yes, thank you. Chair, that concludes the presentation. We can stand for questions. Thank you, Chief and to everyone else that was a part of the presentation. Really appreciate the level of detail in this. We have a few council members in queue. Um, I will let council members know that we currently have captions until 5:30 p.m. I have not been notified if we're able to ex- if we're able to extend or not. So, just want people to be mindful of that fact. Um, the first council member I will recognize is council member Stevenson. Hey there, thank you. Um, s- uh, there was something that was mentioned that I hadn't heard before in the presentation that St. Paul police was uh, helping out Did they respond to one of the incidents? And that was the one where there was the altercation and then Sacha Is that correct? Chair, council member, yes. St. Paul police responded on June 11th, I believe. But that is not the fight that I think you were referencing. Those were two Minneapolis officers who had never responded to Grand Avenue before. Okay, so the St. Paul response was a different day. Chair, council member, yes. Okay, I I misunderstood. >> June I believe that was June 11th. June 11th, okay. You noted in here that there's a backlog of warrants in Hennepin County as of a couple days ago of 18,000 warrants. Is that normal for Hennepin County? You spoke with Hennepin County then. Yes. Council member Stevenson, so what I can tell you to put this into context is when I conducted my review, I contacted Hennepin County sheriffs in the fall of 2024. At the time they had approximately 20,000 outstanding warrants in the fall of 2024. And then as the Chief O'Hearn noted, just in this past quarter of this year of 2026, they had 18,000 and change for outstanding warrants. So, you know, historically I don't know what it looks at you know over the course of you know 10 years, but it seems like that's a pretty common common backlog for Hennepin County you know over the last over the last four or five years. Okay. Do you have any idea what other counties like Ramsey County are at? >> I I do not, sir. No. Okay. That that was just a surprising number to see. Um Can you tell me if any point was this and is this something that is done? I'm ask I I truly don't know. Was this ever flagged as a case that involved racial violence or harassment based on racial identity? Chair, council member, yes. Um There's a police officer that responded and attempted to get felony level charges uh with with a biased motivation. Um and ultimately I believe those charges were declined. Okay, so this was the first set of charge This was included in the first set of charges that were declined. Chair, council member, yes. Um I'd have to look up the date. Um you know, I do recall the officer and the circumstances, but I just I don't know the date offhand. Okay. Um I have many questions. It's hard to know which one is the best one to ask, but basically there was a lot of time when something could have been organized to go in and get Mr. Sawchuk. What really was it that kept right kept this from rising to the level of we need to go in and get this guy? Chair, council member, once there was a felony warrant issued in July. Um police would have had authority to force entry to make an arrest. Um however, legally what is required is you have to know that it's the person's home. You have to have a felony warrant and you have to have probable cause to know that he's in there right now. Um the determination had been made by the supervisors involved. Uh well well one that did not happen other than other than the fight call uh as far as Mr. Sawchuk being outside when the police were there. Um the determination that was made and the plan that was made by people on the precinct level were to continue to conduct surveillance to have officers conduct you know, drive-bys and directed patrols to try and arrest him while this person was outside. Um there was information at some point that he came out I think between 4:00 and 6:00 in the morning. There were attempts made then uh to be there during those times uh to make the arrest. Um what could have happened and this is what I was referencing when I was talking about the increased training on warrants, service of warrants, and search warrants is uh after a time where that was not effective uh and it was clear that we were unable to make the arrest, the determination could have been made to seek a search warrant. Uh and it was not escalated to that point. And if there was a search warrant uh then that could have been handed off to uh the special operations division to then begin the process that they ultimately did involving psychologists and conducting risk assessments and everything else uh that would have taken some time but ultimately would have led to being able to force entry into Saulscheck's home regardless of whether or not the police could confirm that he was there. Okay. Um yeah, there's Thank you. Thank you for that. I'm dismayed by this um representing Ward 8. We uh have tale of two public safety systems, one where George Floyd is murdered uh when he's complying and another where uh Mr. Maturi is shot when he is doing everything to protect himself. So uh and then the history of how this was handled um and with Council Member Jenkins and and everything that happened there. This is a this is very disturbing and I you already know this but to say it again, folks in Ward 8 are very disturbed by this by this case, by everything that happened here and everything that didn't happen here. So um I'll be following up with you many times over this and over what we need to do in order to keep this kind of Yes, sir. you know, massive systemic failures from happening in the future. Yes, sir. Thank you, Council member Wansley. Thank you, Chair Chaudry. Just have a couple questions and comments. My first question is actually related to slide 21 with a neighbor-to-neighbor program cuz it's been highlighted several times. And what I'm a bit confused of, you referenced the contracts. From my understanding, there has not been a formal contract. It sounds like you're citing a barrier of cybersecurity as the reason why there hasn't been a contract. Now, Chair, through Council, I'm I think I got that right. There is There was a contract that had been executed. It took a a um It took a It took a long time to get executed because in part because of the cybersecurity. Um Ms. Cynthia had to call around, try to get quotes, those different sorts of things to try to get that type of security that type of um insurance. It's my understanding at the end she just waved it. But there is a con- there's a contract for $50,000, I believe, um that was executed. This offers clarity. So, because it fit under our financial policy of less than $175,000, that's why it did not move through Council review cuz I've been asking this literally for several months. I believe Council member Chavez and I last term brought in the NAACP to talk about some of their work. This was part of it and we asked explicitly, what Was there any financial um agreements between the city and them at that time to do a lot of this work that they're taking on, such as the mediation program? Um and we were told no. So, that's why I'm surprised to hear that one, there was a contract cuz nothing ever came through Council's process. MPD also never in their budget mentioned that this was going to be a pilot that they're they were enacting and let alone would have a financial note attached to it. So, I think just for transparency purposes and this is something that we've been asking for quite some time of like, what are the external partnerships that MPD is entering into and now um we know that this this offers clarity. You went under that $175,000 um council review limit. And you still have to report it though cuz we did make a financial policy that gives us a full report of what um contracts are we entering into that basically meets under that threshold. But, I've been wondering this too of like, where is that contract if they're doing this work? How are we streamlining resources? Also, why there was a decision to go outside of the scope of neighborhood safety department cuz technically they have partners already in place to do mediation work. So, I also had those questions especially if we weren't in a formal contract. And if you could actually give me clarity on when did this contract technically start? >> Sure. >> And it's and you mentioned the pilot, so when is it set to expire? >> tell you um so, this is what I have. that um Let's see, I want to see when it started. So, it started The initial contract process started July 16th of 2025. Um and then going back and forth with the different documents that were needed, um the we've got the appropriate certificate of insurance 12/16/2025 and then the actual contract was executed January 6th of 2025. Uh and we began official kickoff of the program March 25th, 2026. March of 2026. >> Sorry, this should be January 6th, 2026. Okay. >> Yes. So, this year, so there was a formalization of it this year. So, it should have been included in our quarterly reports for the less than $175,000 vendor contract. Um the reason why I'm flagging this again is just around like transparency of partnerships. And also something else that I want to highlight, it's great that we're doing mediation services like this, but I think the biggest piece was this was a hate crime also. >> Mhm. Um so, Ashley, next question, I don't think this is related to you. >> Okay. Uh but thank you so much for offering this clarity. >> Absolutely. Is what is the current status of hate crime uh training that's being uh advanced across the the department? How what's the percentage of officers who's went through it? I know this is something that also this council initiated in partnership with civil rights originally, and then it was handed over to MPD. But the underlying basis of this crime was it was a hate crime. And I don't think there was no level of mediation of that a community partner could have really done to just for first acknowledge this is what was the spearhead. So, if you could share a little bit, and I know that was somewhat touched upon in the report that you included. Chair, council member, uh yes, there is uh bias bias training in the police department. There is new training that's being developed pursuant to the MDHR agreement. Um I just don't have the status of that with me. We can Okay, cuz on page I think it's nine of the report, that's what I'm looking at. It says you all developed hate crime. What is this? Let me make sure it's Yep, the training introduces tools and practices that enhance law enforcement's capacity. And it says that this training actually was created or in um November of 2024. So, kind of predating uh MDHR efforts, and that it's offered through the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas. So, seems like this was something that was enacted 2 years ago and I know again cuz we worked on this as a body 2 years ago. So, just seeing yeah, temperature check where officers are at completing this. Chair Council member, I'd have to follow up on that. I don't have that in front of me, but I know I know separately that there are requirements under the consent decree and MDHR around bias-free policing. Okay, so this sounds like a staff. That does sound familiar. I just I don't remember offhand. What you did mention though does sound familiar to me. >> And I'm reading directly from the report that you Sorry, it was on page 10 of your appendix. Specifically appendix B of training announcements. Um so, and that's referencing hate crime. The other thing that I just want clarity on is I think as you know, Council member Chavez and I brought this legislative motion or legislative directive out of respect and in response to Mr. Davis Motari who asked for a public release of the internal assessment that MPD and OCS leadership said that they completed last year to the media. This feels like a response to the after action and I know my office reached out to OCS very clearly multiple times asking, you are all are not preparing a response to the after action. You're actually going to respond the report that you did in real time. Um after Davis Motari was shot and we were assured that yes, these are two separate things. We're getting a full-on response to the after action. That is not what this asked for. So, I'm trying to get clarity on do you actually have >> you're at your 7 minutes. Okay, get back. Um I'm going to also let members know two things. We have to end this meeting at 5:30. And we are also at quorum. So, no one can leave. If they have to leave, then we're going to lose quorum and then we'll have to end the meeting. So, FYIs. Uh I'll recognize Council President Payne. Uh thank you, Madam Chair. I have a question for you, Chief, and a question for BC Martin. I think I want to start with BC Martin. Um I'm really excited about the neighbor-to-neighbor pilot. It's something that I was actually trying to work with the administration on back in 2022 when I you know, you you you come on as a new council member and your inbox is flooded with the most insane spectrum of things that you can imagine. One of the common themes is just neighbor disputes and they're often times things that don't rise to the occasion of criminal interactions that require police, but there was this huge gap. So, I'm glad to see that we have this. Um I'm concerned that it's actually in the police department. A lot of my early conversations was contemplating this type of pilot to exist within neighborhood safety because you know, I in the in the Matura case, I mean, there was so many interactions with the police and the escalation just kept on rising, but many of the neighbor disputes that end up in my inbox, I don't know that they've ever they rise to the occasion for a police intervention. And I'm wondering how my we as council members, who I'm sure all of us on this day as are dealing with neighbor disputes small and large, what would be the best way to get our constituents plugged into this? Cuz it seems to me that it's a MPD referral through an MPD engagement and intervention and didn't seem clear to me that there would be another way of getting access to the service for when we learn about neighbor disputes. No, that's a that's a good point. Yeah, because it the the one entry is through the 911 system, which a lot of people don't even feel comfortable calling um because they're not comfortable with the response. Um I did happen to watch because this was before my time. I happened to watch the press conference that UMCT and and the NAACP did shortly after the shooting. They mentioned the sites that they have around the city and encourage folks to come in and make you know, make them aware of any issues and that you know, they could do the mediation without police intervention. So that that's one way, but certainly we could be open. Well, if you don't if you don't want it to come through the police department, I guess I wouldn't be the one to to improve that process, but I think you make a really a really good point. >> I think I have one at the top of my inbox right now. Like should I forward it to you? Should I call my constituent and say I'm going to get you in touch with BC Martin? I would say yes. I mean, this to me right is a pilot and the whole point of a pilot is at the end to see what worked and what didn't work. And to me accessibility and people in a time of crisis when they don't know what to do and where we don't need a police response as an over response is what we should be trying to you know, get towards. So I would welcome for you to send that over and that be part of the the pilot process that we assess at the end. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. >> and then this question is for the chief. It should be pretty quick. Um have you met with the Hennepin County Attorney yet? Uh Chair, Council President, we have a meeting scheduled, the Commissioner and I, upcoming. I just don't know the date offhand. Okay. So it's on the books. It's scheduled. It's going to happen. Uh Chair, Council President, yes. Okay, great. Thank you. Great. The I will now recognize Council Member Warren. And I'll remind members we need quorum to finish taking action on this. So, we can keep on having the discussion, but to close up the meeting we'll need quorum. And I believe Council Member Warsame will be back. Yes, because her computer is right there. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Um I I have a question. I know that there are conversations and speculation with this um being viewed as a hate crime. And I believe that some parts of it was a hate crime. But, I'm also looking at the information that was shared with us in predisposition about the previous owner of the Metteury home that had the harassment orders and the previous reports that came in from the other neighbors up and down the the block there on Grand Avenue and why there was not a escalation. So, what was in the actual report that went to um the Hennepin County Attorney as to why they were not charging. Why wasn't there pressure applied to charge the case, especially being that Mr. Sawchuk, it was known that he um had an inability to stand trial previously and that he definitely had some um pretty exuberant mental health issues. Like, they were we knew this. So, I'm trying to really wrap my mind around why this wasn't escalated in the early onset because there had already been um a history of pre-existing um, neighborhood terroristic threat and behavior. Uh, Chair, Councilmember, um, there was for sure, uh, one incident where the responding officer felt very strongly was motivated by bias, um, and made significant attempts, um, to have that, um, however, the the the the determination was made just the elements of the offense were not there. Um, so I know there's, uh, a long history with this individual, Commander Markstrom mentioned, uh, going back to, uh, 2015 with different individuals there. However, it was clear, um, at least in that one instance, um, for sure, uh, that the officer believed that, uh, the motivating factors relevant, um, for a crime motivated by bias were present. Okay. So, and I'm just, you know, just in familiarity with the with the area right there on on Grand Avenue, it's not a very large concentration of an all-black block. So, there's more folks that that's there on the block that were experiencing some other issues there with this neighbor, and this is the first time that I'm learning that it's a fourplex unit, and he had access to all of the units there in the fourplex unit, so it wasn't and, you know, that we needed to go in and check on the safety or well-being of other people that may have been in those those other three units, or we knew that he was only occupying one unit, or did we assume that he was occupying the entire fourplex itself? Um, do we do you have any follow-up? Yeah. Commander, uh, Chair, Councilmember, Commander Campbell can speak specifically to that. Thank you, Chief. Uh through the chair, um Council member, yeah, we are aware that um it the home used to be uh owned by his mother and that he was the only tenant in it and he had full range of the entire place. We had that information. Okay, and so you you knew that the other three units were vacant in their entirety. Correct. And you weren't concerned based on his mental health and other complaints that had riddled through the community since 2015 that there may have been somebody else in there that may have been held against their will or anything else, anything that could have sparked curiosity that would have gained you immediate access knowing the nature of his mental health and well-being with all of the things because I know that our police department can be quite creative when they want to get into some place because, you know, they have a hunch, right? So, there wasn't a hunch? No thoughts, ideas? Nothing that came to me. Abuse, squirrel, bird, nothing? Nothing that came to the idea that it would be best if we got inside of there to check on a dog, a cat, anything? Nothing? Nothing that was presented to me. Okay. All right, that's really interesting because I'm still just really struggling with the fact that this individual had been terrorizing this neighborhood with this level of mental instability from 2015 before, right? It we he had been this had been going on for quite some time and had previously been arrested and was seen to be unfit to stand trial. There was history about this individual and I can only lean back into the fact that with this case that it was a a white male and so that's why we didn't go inside of there and get him because if it would have been a black male with two birds of coke, a couple of shotguns, six pitbulls, and chickens fighting in the basement, they'd have lifted the roof up off of there and went in there and got him in a matter of moments. But now we have someone who is in in mental health whatever and we wait and we drag our feet and that is a disservice to Mr. Sauchak who was clearly spiraling and it's a disservice to everybody in that community and my heart just goes out to to the families experiencing all of that that disservice because I know that they'll go in there for somebody. I mean, I've seen it numerous amount of times, you know, so and that's just with the suspicion of doors being kicked in and things like that on the suspicion. So I'm just you know, this is really interesting. But thank you. Yep. Thank you. Next I'll recognize Council member Schafer. Yes, thank you. I I just thank you for this presentation. Could you speak a little bit more to the VCAT team, the violent criminal apprehension team? Kind of I know it's a relatively new program, but what is the process like? How much time is spent on that? What is the process between who refers cases to them? Do they come from the county or from internal? Just a little bit more detail around that team. Uh chair, Council member, so the the violent criminal apprehension team is something that existed in the department prior to 2020 was disbanded I believe in 21 or 22 prior to prior to me being employed with the city. Um as of today they are housed with the violent violent crimes division. They work hand-in-hand very often with the firearms arrest the fast team, the non-fatal shooting team. Um but they are available to to track and apprehend any violent offender once there is probable cause to make an arrest or a warrant is issued. Um they are supported by some outside agencies. We just got a new one this week the the state corrections is going to be working with us which is helpful because many many of the folks that you know are doing harm are known to them. So they will be supporting us as well as some of the other local law enforcement agencies. Um so that's um that's the team that regardless of where an investigation goes if it goes to the assault unit or to the robbery unit or to the the the fast team or homicide if there's somebody that needs to be picked up once there is probable cause developed those are the people who specialize in in making those arrests and it was a function that just didn't exist here during that time period because of resource demands and they're also the people that will coordinate with the folks who serve warrants at the sheriff's office whether it's both the people specifically hold the warrants that go out and do warrant service or the the sheriff has a violent offender task force that they they work with routinely also. Okay, so primarily those referrals come from maybe outside agencies or internal? I'm new so thanks for the clarification. Sorry, chair council member these are our investigations. It's a different components of the police department, whether it's the people who are investigating robberies, there's a different unit investigating shootings, different unit investigating assaults, or, you know, non-fatal shootings, homicides. These are our investigations, generally. And they but they do coordinate, like I mentioned, with the sheriff's office and and other agencies. Great. And are those primarily from current cases, or would those be backlog cases, like you referred to in the presentation? Chair, Council member, it's both, because there are cases that are older. The distinction is that now is the time we we develop probable cause. So if they're clearing out a case, believe this week they closed a either shooting or homicide from 2 years ago. They're clearing that out. If that person needs to be apprehended, these are the people who who who go make the arrest. Great. Thank you for all this information. Yes, ma'am. Council member Chavez. Thank you, Chair Chappelle. I'll be quick in regards to the conversation we're having today. And as a chair of the Public Health Safety and Equity Committee, I just want to let our colleagues know that we're going to be continuing to dig deep on this topic that is really important to not only us as city council members, but to families and to our constituents. At the next Public Health and Safety Committee, myself, Council members Stevenson, Council member Want are bringing forward a legislative directive, which would require quarterly reports on updates regarding this case. I think one of the things that we really care about as members of this body is tracking the changes that will be coming as a result from this after action of you, and letting the public know that we as Council members want to make sure that this information gets presented to the Public Health Safety and Equity Committee moving forward on a quarterly basis. So I just wanted to let folks know that this will be coming next cycle, because there will be a lot more time for further conversations as we dig deep because there is a lot of stuff we need to change. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Council Member Chavez. This is a good segue into what I'm proposing we do. There is still members who want to ask further questions. Some members have gotten out of queue. Some members are just waiting. So, what we're going to do is we're going I'm going to make a motion to send this to the Public Safety Health Equity Committee. Um May I have a second? Second. I'll take up that vote and then this will continue there and then we will be able to adjourn here today today. So, all those in favor of that motion, please say I. I. Those opposed say nay. That motion carries and seeing no further business before us with no objection, I will declare this meeting adjourned.