3 Minneapolis City Council members file police reports accusing activists of intimidation

Three Minneapolis City Council members have filed police reports following a council meeting where they say activists physically threatened and intimidated them for not voting their way, including one incident captured on video in which a council member said she was briefly trapped on an escalator in the skyway and feared for her safety.

No one was physically harmed Thursday in several incidents stemming from activist opposition to the city's planned demolition of a vacant building. Citing racial justice and environmental concerns, they disrupted the City Council meeting, shouting profanities and reaching over the dais where council members sat, and banged on walls and doors outside the offices of Mayor Jacob Frey.

By Friday afternoon, three council members — LaTrisha Vetaw, Michael Rainville and Emily Koski — had filed police reports that were being investigated for potential crimes ranging from misdemeanor assault to terroristic threats. One activist also filed a complaint against a council member for damaging his cellphone case.

Thursday's events highlight a sentiment growing among many Minneapolis officials: that some activists have crossed a line from advocacy to outright intimidation in a way that's unacceptable in public discourse.

"Would we allow this if it were far-right, pro-gun, anti-abortion people? Of course not," Frey, who has received death threats, said Friday. "It's wrong, period. No matter the underlying substance of the issue, it's wrong. And people should be speaking up on it, no matter their stance on the particular issue."

The particular issue Thursday was a dispute over the city-owned Roof Depot in the East Phillips neighborhood. The city wants to demolish the building as part of an expansion of an adjacent public works facility. The plan has galvanized some neighbors , who complain of historic environmental injustice for a community that is heavily populated by people of color. They also fear demolition will stir up pollution in the site.

Earlier in the week, a group of activists cut through fencing and occupied the area before police ejected them. On Friday, a judge temporarily halted the planned demolition.

A last-ditch effort by a minority of council members to scuttle the city's plans failed on Thursday. After one such vote, more than a dozen activists inside council chambers disrupted the meeting, prompting a recess while security cleared the room.

The most tense incident came well after that, when Vetaw walked from City Hall through the skyway to U.S. Bank Plaza to get lunch.

She was approached by D.J. Hooker, a man known to Vetaw and others. In 2021, Hooker was among a group of activists who blocked a car with Council President Andrea Jenkins inside for two hours until she signed papers agreeing to their demands.

Hooker, who recorded the incident with Jenkins, also recorded the encounter with Vetaw and shared it on social media Thursday.

The video shows the camera inches from Vetaw's face on several occasions as she walks onto the escalator from a ground-floor restaurant to return to the skyway level. At least five times she tells him he is too close.

The accounts of Vetaw and Hooker differ slightly after that, as they both ascend the escalator, with Hooker above her and an aide and plainclothes police officer below. Vetaw said Hooker stopped at the landing at the top, creating a scenario where the escalator was carrying her toward him.

Video showed him calling her a liar, using an expletive. "You're a terrible person," he yells as the camera bobs back and forth toward her face.

"I could feel my feet slipping under me," she said in an interview Friday, emphasizing that the escalator is exposed in the plaza's multistory indoor atrium.

"I don't know how long it lasted but it felt like forever," Vetaw said. "Are you going to sit around and wait for someone to punch you in the face?"

The camera contacted her face and she grabbed it, she said.

In an interview, Hooker disputed that. "She advanced on me before the top of the escalator," he said.

After the video becomes obscured in a brief tug-of-war over the phone, a plainclothes Minneapolis police sergeant intercedes and backs Hooker off, asking him if he wants to "go to jail" and identifying himself.

Building security eventually escorts Hooker away.

Police records from Vetaw's complaint indicate it's being investigated for the possible offenses of fifth-degree assault, a misdemeanor, and disorderly conduct.

Hooker said he did nothing wrong.

Minneapolis police and the City Attorney's Office declined to comment.

Vetaw said she's twice seen violence up close, once when an armed person invaded her home and another time when she witnessed a relative being shot.

"This triggered that trauma, and I was traumatized again," she said Friday morning.

The complaints filed by Koski and Rainville were from the City Council meeting disrupted by activists, with several walking through a fabric belt intended to separate officials from the public.

"There was a gentleman in particular who was the most aggressive to me," Rainville said. "He said he knew where I lived, that he knew I had a family and he was coming to get us."

Koski could not be reached for comment.

"It's about the threat of physical violence," Rainville said. "It's not implied. It's direct. I like to think I don't get intimidated easily, but what happened yesterday scared me. ... We're trying to bring the city back and this is not the way to do it."

Staff writer Liz Sawyer contributed to this report.