Gang Strike Task Force: Millions spent, but few resultsMetro Gang Strike Force operations had less to do with prosecuting gang members than with harassing them, law enforcement officials say.
The now-defunct agency, shut down Friday by the state public safety commissioner, appears to have spent more time taking people's cars and money, frequently without arresting them, than building cases, officials say.
Having reviewed the Strike Force's records, officials said they were struck by the lack of paperwork within the unit, even though it is an axiom of good police work that successful prosecutions require thorough reports.
"How people can take police action and not write a report -- that's what befuddles me," Public Safety Commissioner Michael Campion told a recent meeting of the Minnesota Gang and Drug Oversight Council, which oversees 22 gang and drug task forces statewide.
In closing down the operation Friday, Campion said it had lost the support of law enforcement agencies. An FBI probe and a state investigation of the unit are continuing.
The 34-member Strike Force received $1.9 million in state money last year, and indirectly an almost equal amount from the police agencies that assigned officers and supervisors to it. Those agencies paid the first $50,000 of each member's compensation.
The Strike Force's commander, Chris Omodt -- who took over in January just before State Auditor James Nobles began uncovering evidence of missing cash and improperly seized cars -- told the state oversight board: "In files I've seen, I see very few prosecutions come out of our office."
Data on Strike Force prosecutions is hard to come by. A 2008 Strike Force report claimed 783 arrests of gang members during 2007, 544 for felonies. But it doesn't list the number of cases prosecuted.
The Ramsey County Attorney's Office says it filed felony charges in 39 cases brought to it by the Strike Force in 2007 and declined to charge 14. In 2008, 23 cases from the unit led to felony charges while 13 did not. In 2009, six felony cases were charged. Spokesman Paul Gustafson said some cases turned down might have been charged, but not as felonies.
The Hennepin County attorney's office has no record of how many cases were brought to it by the Strike Force because of the way it classifies cases.
"My impression is that we did not get a whole lot of cases that were worked up by the Strike Force," said Pat Diamond, deputy Hennepin County attorney.
Crimes by Strike Force?
The FBI probe is looking at whether Strike Force members committed any crimes. Campion has convened a separate panel to study Strike Force operations. Campion indicated Friday that the state panel may issue a report in August.
The Star Tribune has learned that in one case being examined by the FBI, a man claims Strike Force members beat him and placed a gun in his mouth, then cocked it and demanded to know where he had hidden drugs.
Strike Force members acknowledge that the man, Hector Garcia, now 26, was detained in 2007, but they deny the brutality allegations. No drugs were found, and he was never arrested or charged.
An internal Strike Force report on the case, obtained by the Star Tribune under the state Data Practices Act, is less than a half-page long. One prominent law enforcement official who reviewed the report said it provided insufficient information and lacked the basic protocols considered "best practices" for police recordkeeping: It did not provide the officers' probable cause for detaining the man and searching him and his relative's house, and it did not contain reports from the investigators involved. The report claims that the residents, who spoke no English, gave officers their consent to enter, making a search warrant unnecessary.
Evidence but no paperwork
The Strike Force was supposed to investigate gangs and transmit information to police and sheriff's departments in the Twin Cities area. While some Strike Force members did solid investigative work, the unit's failure to produce thorough reports meant that other agencies were not getting what they needed from it, law enforcement officials say.
Concerned that other task forces around the state not repeat the Metro Gang Strike Force's mistakes, Nobles, the Legislative Auditor, and his staff were asked to brief the state oversight board earlier this month.
"We got the impression a lot of activity was not involved in prosecution of people," Nobles told the officials, who included a number of sheriffs from across Minnesota.
"It was more about making life difficult for people and taking their stuff," he said. "We saw a lot of that stuff in the evidence room."
Nobles said it is imperative that task forces not deviate from their mission. "The strategy needs to be driven more to prosecutions," he said, with an emphasis on building cases.
The Garcia case
Garcia, 27, a roofer who speaks only Spanish, described the incident that is under review by the FBI in an interview through a translator. He said that on the afternoon of April 4, 2007, Strike Force officers threw him to the ground as he was leaving his wife's aunt's house in south Minneapolis, then handcuffed him and took him inside the house.
There, officers handcuffed other family members, Garcia said, and took him upstairs where they struck him several times. He said he was told by an officer who spoke Spanish that an informant had reported someone in a brown sweatshirt selling drugs, and he was wearing a brown shirt.
The officers asked him where the drugs were, Garcia said. Then they took him to the basement where they threw him on a bed and "they started hitting me more, asking where the drugs were," Garcia said.
"One of the police officers told me to open my mouth, and the other put the gun in my mouth." The gun was then cocked, he said. "I started to cry and I thought I was going to die."
Garcia said a dog was eventually brought in to search for drugs, but found nothing.
Garcia retained attorney Bruce Nestor, who filed a complaint with the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights. A response filed by the city attorney's office in August 2007 said that police were "acting on credible information from an informant" when they detained Garcia, but gave no details. The memo acknowledged that Garcia was interrogated but denied officers beat him or put a gun in his mouth.
Last month Nestor learned that the Civil Rights Department had dismissed the case, saying the Strike Force was not within its jurisdiction.
The Strike Force report on Garcia's case alleged that he was a member of the Vatos Locos gang and was "supposed to be in the possession of a pound of meth." The allegation was based on a tip from an informant. Garcia said he has never been a member of a gang and doesn't use drugs, according to Nestor.
The law enforcement official who reviewed the report said it gave insufficient reasons to verify that the informant was reliable or that there was reason to detain Garcia or enter the house.
"I am shocked by the lack of documentation that apparently exists in Metro Gang case files," the official said. "It is not how we do business."
