Minneapolis has agreed to pay $2 million to six people who say police officers fired rubber projectiles at them while they stood guard outside a gas station during the unrest that followed George Floyd's murder, with court judgments filed Monday. The plaintiffs are friends and family of the gas station's owners, who had watched the business get looted by rioters and returned on the night of May 30, 2020, to protect what remained.
As reported by MPR News, the judgments do not amount to an admission of guilt by the city. The incident took place at the Stop N Shop gas station on East Lake Street, where police fired less-lethal rounds from a van and used chemical spray during the encounter, according to News From The States. The SWAT team had been assigned to enforce a citywide curfew along the commercial corridor after days of arson, per that outlet's reporting.
The $2 million judgment is associated with a lawsuit captioned *Awaijane et al v. Bittell et al*.
A Familiar Name From a Previous Case
Stetson's presence in the case is notable because he was also involved in a separate excessive force incident during the 2020 unrest, one that became one of the most closely watched police accountability cases to come out of that period. He was convicted in 2023 of assaulting Jaleel Stallings, an Army veteran who had fired at the unmarked police van that night, believing he was under attack by civilians.
Stallings was acquitted of all criminal charges by a jury in 2021 after bodycam and surveillance video contradicted initial police reports and corroborated his account, according to MPR News. He surrendered to officers and complied with their demands once he recognized them as police, and he later sued the city, which paid him a $1.5 million settlement in 2022.
Stetson was sentenced in October 2023 to 15 days in the Hennepin County workhouse and two years of probation after pleading guilty to third-degree felony assault and misconduct by a public officer for the Stallings beating, per reporting from CBS News Minnesota. As part of his guilty plea, he filed a court-mandated apology admitting he “crossed the line” and acknowledging participating in a “harmful, toxic culture of policing” within the department, the Minnesota Attorney General's Office noted at the time. Attorney General Keith Ellison has observed that officers rarely plead guilty to excessive force committed while on duty.
A Growing Tab for Taxpayers
Minneapolis also approved a $950,000 settlement in February 2024 to resolve an ACLU class-action lawsuit brought by eight journalists and photojournalists who were tear-gassed, shot with rubber bullets, or detained during the protests, according to MPR News.
Minneapolis's costs mirror a national pattern. By May 2023, at least 19 U.S. cities had agreed to pay a combined total of more than $80 million in legal settlements to people injured by police during 2020 racial justice demonstrations, legal scholars cited by The Guardian called the volume and dollar figures historically unprecedented.
Reform Mandates Still Loom Over MPD
The city also expects to come under a federal consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice.
