Police shooting of a man in Minneapolis
Dolal Idd was a 23-year-old Somali-American man who was killed in an exchange of gunfire with Minneapolis police officers at approximately 6:15 p.m. CST on December 30, 2020, after he shot at them from inside the car he was driving. The fatal encounter happened in the U.S. state of Minnesota during a police sting operation.
Minneapolis police were investigating Idd for illegal possession and sale of firearms. Idd was prohibited from possessing firearms as part of his probation from a prior felony conviction. A confidential police informant intermediated as a buyer for a semi-automatic pistol, and made arrangements for a buyer to purchase the gun from Idd so that police officers could arrest him. Video captured by a police body camera the evening of December 30 showed police officers attempting to arrest Idd who struck several police vehicles with the car he was driving. After the vehicle driven by Idd was blocked by several police vehicles to prevent escape, Idd fired a handgun from inside the car he was driving through a rolled up window that shattered outward and hit a police vehicle containing several police officers. Minneapolis police officers Paul Huynh, Darcy Klund, and Jason Schmit returned several rounds of gunfire, killing Idd at the scene.
The shooting on December 30, 2020, took place in the parking lot of a busy Holiday gas station at the intersection of Cedar Avenue and East 36th Street in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood of Minneapolis, from the location where George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer on May 25, 2020. Floyd's murder resulted in prolonged local unrest and worldwide protests. Idd's death was the first killing by a Minneapolis police officer since that of Floyd. The December 30, 2020, shooting affected the local community still in mourning over Floyd's murder seven months prior, and reignited local debate over police brutality and race relations. In several rallies, protesters questioned the police narrative of the December 30 incident and if police officers could have used better de-escalation tactics to prevent an exchange of gunfire.
In the vehicle driven by Idd, law enforcement investigators recovered a pistol and two spent ammunition cartridges on the driver's side, as well as a backpack on the passenger's side that contained ammunition and a Leinad PM-11 machine pistol, the type of gun a confidential police informant arranged to purchase from Idd. The Minneapolis police, citing video footage and witness statements from the incident, said officers returned fire in response to an initial shot by a civilian. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension opened an investigation of the officer-involved shooting. The bureau's preliminary report, issued on January 4, 2021, said that Idd struck several police vehicles with the car he was driving and that he had shot his gun first before police returned fire.
Minneapolis police officers Huynh, Klund, and Schmit fired their weapons at Idd during the December 30 incident. Investigators at the scene recovered six bullets and seven bullet fragments from the rounds that the officers fired at Idd. An autopsy report classified Idd's death as a homicide, due to multiple gunshot wounds. The conduct of the officers, and if they were legally justified in using force, was reviewed by the Dakota County attorney's office. The final charging decision memorandum it released on August 6, 2021, said the officers' actions were justified and that no criminal charges would be filed against them.
Background.
Fatal police shootings in Minnesota.
Idd's death provoked a strong reaction in the local community as it was reminiscent of recent, fatal police encounters, particularly the shootings of black men. Minneapolis police had shot at people 17 different times from 2015 to the end of 2019, killing a person in five circumstances, most notably Jamar Clark, a black man, in 2015 and Justine Damond, a white woman, in 2017. In the Minneapolis suburb of Falcon Heights in 2016, a police officer from another nearby suburb, St. Anthony, shot and killed Philando Castile, a black man, during a traffic stop.
Murder of George Floyd and the aftermath.
Idd's death came as Minneapolis officials attempted to reform the city's policing policies in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, by a white Minneapolis police officer on May 25, 2020. Officials were also addressing a wave of violent crime that followed widespread civic unrest in late May and early June 2020 after Floyd's murder. Idd's death was the 83rd homicide in the city in 2020, a number that eclipsed the previous two years combined. The Powderhorn Park area that featured the George Floyd Square, a street intersection that protesters transformed to an "autonomous zone", had been the location of several violent crimes since Floyd's murder and authorities had investigated firearm dealers that used the barricaded area as cover for illicit activities.
People involved.
Dolal Idd.
Dolal Bayle Idd (July 18, 1997 – December 30, 2020) was born in Somalia to parents from Kebri Dehar, a city in the Somali region of Ethiopia. His father resettled in the United States from Somalia in 1997, the same year Dolal Idd was born. Dolal Idd was three-years old when he emigrated with other family from Somalia to the United States. The family first resided in San Diego, California, and then moved to the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area, first residing in the suburb of New Hope, to be near extended family who already lived there. The Idd family had 11 children, including Dolal Idd. Idd resided in the Minneapolis suburb of Eden Prairie for most of his adolescent years. In 2015, Idd graduated from Eden Prairie High School according to the "Sahan Journal" or Minnetonka High School according to the "Star Tribune".
After high school, Idd travelled with the family to Ethiopia and stayed there for several months. In 2016, Idd had briefly enrolled at Normandale Community College in Bloomington, Minnesota, for the spring semester, and he hoped to study computers or pursue a career as an emergency medical technician. He was also interested in learning more about Islam and the family discussed sending him to Egypt to study the Quran and the Arabic language.
Idd accumulated a criminal record in Minnesota over in next few years that included seven misdemeanors and a felony conviction. In 2018, Idd received jail time on three occasions. In 2019, Idd was jailed for several charges, including that he committed theft, carried a firearm without a permit, possessed marijuana, fled a police officer, and committed credit card fraud. As part of a plea agreement, Idd agreed to live at a residential drug treatment center, and spent three months there in 2019. In October 2020, Idd was booked into a Bloomington city jail on felony suspicion of a stolen vehicle.
Idd's most prominent criminal case was a July 2018 incident when he accidentally fired a gun in a shower of his parents' home as two children slept nearby. At the time of the incident, family members said that Idd was not allowed in the house as he scared the young children who lived there, and he was believed to have broken in through the basement patio door late at night. Idd fled the house after the gun discharged, leaving behind a box of bullets and a gun magazine. Police arrested him a few hours later when responding to a suspicious vehicle in a parking lot in Bloomington, Minnesota. Idd was found asleep in the vehicle and in possession of drug paraphernalia and a loaded Smith &amp; Wesson 9 mm handgun that had been reported stolen out of North Dakota. Idd was eventually charged in October 2018 and he pled guilty in a Hennepin County court in 2019 of illegally possessing and firing a gun. Idd was sentenced to time already served in jail and placed on probation, and was ordered by the judge not to possess firearms. The probationary period had nearly finished at the time of his death.
The 23-year old Dolal Idd's last known address was his parents' home in Eden Prairie, a suburb of Minneapolis, approximately 13 miles from the city's downtown area. Idd's girlfriend said she had been to the family's Eden Prairie home and that Idd lived in the basement. Family members said that Idd moved out of the family's house in early December after his brother, Mohamed Idd, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder in connection to a fatal shooting at an apartment complex in Bloomington, Minnesota, that occurred at 5:30 a.m. on November 30, 2020. According to police investigators, surveillance video also showed that Dolal Idd had been at the same apartment complex a few hours prior to that shooting.
After his death, friends and family of Dolal Idd commented about the period of time proceeding his death. They said that he was trying to turn his life around, that he had difficulty securing a job due to prior criminal convictions, and that he was seeing a therapist weekly. They also said that Idd had become increasingly paranoid about the police and fearful that he was being followed. After moving out of his family's home in early December 2020, Idd stayed with a friend, but he left after a couple of weeks. Idd was staying at a hotel in Bloomington, Minnesota, in the days leading up to his death.
Passenger.
An adult, female passenger owned the white Chevrolet Cobalt vehicle Idd was driving during the December 30, 2020 incident. She sat in the passenger's seat as Idd exchanged gunfire with Minneapolis police officers. She identified as his girlfriend.
Minneapolis police officers.
The Minneapolis police officers who fired at Idd during the December 30 incident were Paul Huynh, Darcy Klund, and Jason Schmitt. By the time of the shooting, Huynh had been with the police department for six years, Schmitt for 23 years, and Klund for 33 years. The three officers were members of a community response team that focused on issues such as drugs and street-level crimes, and had been investigating an increase in carjackings in Minneapolis. Klund was the sergeant in charge of the team. Prior to the December 30 incident, the officers had several civilian complaints against them; Huynh had seven, Klund four, and Schmitt 24. None of the officers were disciplined for the complaints.
Schmitt received a Medal of Honor for his role as a responder to the I-35W Mississippi River bridge collapse in 2007. In 2014 the police department settled a misconduct lawsuit for $7,000 stemming from a 2007 incident involving Schmitt; he was accused of striking a man with his rifle during an arrest. None of the complaints against Schmitt considered by internal affairs or civilian review resulted in discipline.
Early in his career, Klund was reprimanded for berating another officer and he was temporarily demoted from being a sergeant until he was reinstated by an arbitration process. In a separate instance, he was praised for quick response and showing respect to the family of a homicide victim. In mid 2020, Klund was one of several city police officers that signed a public letter that condemned the murder of George Floyd and pledged to improve community trust.
Hunyh, the newest member of the team, had been reviewed eight times by internal affairs since 2014; none of the reviews resulted in discipline. He received a few awards for his role investigating robberies.
Shooting.
Sting operation.
A confidential informant, who had been working with the Minneapolis police for over 20 years, became aware of a person on December 21, 2020, who was attempting to sell an AR-15 style rifle. Upon passing the information to Klund and the community response team, police investigators looked up the unidentified seller's mobile phone number records and discovered the seller had daily communication with Mohammed Idd, an inmate at the Hennepin County jail. The AR-15 was sold to an unknown party before police investigators could take any action. The confidential informant learned that the seller was also in possession of a MAC-10-style semiautomatic pistol that could be acquired and that the seller went by “Bird”, a nickname investigators had associated with Dolal Idd from previous investigations, and who was the brother of Mohammed Idd.
The Minneapolis Police Department attempted a sting operation the evening of December 30, 2020. The confidential informant led Idd to believe that they were intermediating for another unknown person who would buy the MAC-10-style gun that Idd wanted to sell, and the confidential informant and Idd communicated via mobile phone. Idd's attempt to