High-ranking Minneapolis Police Department officer sues Liz Collin, Alpha News for defamation

A high-ranking officer with the Minneapolis Police Department has sued media figure Liz Collin and Alpha News for defamation over claims made in the film “The Fall of Minneapolis” and a similarly themed book.

In the lawsuit filed Tuesday in Hennepin County District Court, Katie Blackwell, the assistant chief of operations for MPD, argues statements Collin made in her film and book about Blackwell’s testimony during the state and federal trials in the murder of George Floyd are lies.

Those lies “have clouded Blackwell’s career,” the lawsuit alleges.

Blackwell’s testimony helped lead to the conviction of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin of murdering Floyd and three other officers of violating Floyd’s civil rights.

The lawsuit alleges passages from the book and “deceptive framing and editing” in the film make it appear as though Blackwell argued the department never trained Chauvin in maximal restraint technique. Blackwell testified the technique Chauvin used to kill Floyd when he knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes was not part of any department training and was not the maximal restraint technique.

Chris Madel is representing all defendants in the lawsuit including Collin, Alpha News, “The Fall of Minneapolis” director J.C. Chaix and White Birch Publishing, which published “They’re Lying: The Media, the Left, and the Death of George Floyd.”

“The lawsuit is garbage,” Madel said. “Garbage belongs in the trash.”

Jennifer Moore and Christopher Paul of Trautmann Martin Law are representing Blackwell and had no comment on the pending litigation.

In her current capacity, Blackwell oversees daily operations, including patrols and investigations for the Minneapolis Police Department. The lawsuit argues that places Blackwell “at the helm of departmental efforts to reform and improve policing practices.”

According to the lawsuit, Collin worked as a reporter for WCCO TV during Chauvin’s trial but left that position in January 2022. Collin claims that she was fired by WCCO because she is married to Bob Kroll, the former president of the union representing the officers of the Minneapolis Police Department. Kroll served in that role from 2015-2021.

When Collin left WCCO she began working for Alpha News, a conservative media outlet that markets itself as a team of independent journalists “reporting stories that go untold by our state’s mainstream media.” Collin released her book in October 2022, and “The Fall of Minneapolis” was released in November 2023.

Blackwell became a sworn MPD officer in 2002 and rose quickly through the ranks, serving as the Fifth Precinct inspector until being tapped for Chief Brian O’Hara’s command staff last year. In her new role as his No. 2, Blackwell often makes daily operations decisions and speaks for the department in his absence.

“Katie Blackwell was one of several Minneapolis Police officers who did the right thing,” O’Hara said in a statement to the Star Tribune. “She told the truth. I am proud of her actions and respect her integrity. She embodies the values I want in every officer who serves the residents of our city.”

She also serves in the Minnesota National Guard as command sergeant major of the 84th Troop Command in the 34th Infantry Division.

The lawsuit focuses on several claims that Collin made regarding the prosecution of Chauvin, who was convicted in Hennepin County court for the murder of Floyd and sentenced to 22½ years in prison. Chauvin also pleaded guilty to violating Floyd’s civil rights and was sentenced to 21 years in prison. Those sentences are running concurrently. Ex-officers J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao stood trial, were convicted of violating Floyd’s civil rights and sentenced to federal prison terms of 2½ to 5 years.

Blackwell was called as an expert witness for the prosecution at both trials because she served as the commander of the Training Division and had expertise on department training and policies.

She testified at Chauvin’s murder trial that Minneapolis police officers receive regular training on use of force, that they are required to move subjects from a prone position to side recovery position as soon as possible to avoid asphyxia, that the knee-on-neck restraint that Chauvin used on Floyd was not a trained department technique, and that officers are trained to understand the “dangers of positional asphyxia” and to provide medical care to subjects in custody.

Blackwell testified at the federal trial that several aspects of police conduct in the killing of Floyd went against department regulations including: Chauvin’s keeping his knee on Floyd’s neck; the continued restraint of Floyd after he stopped resisting; the failure to provide aid to Floyd once he became unresponsive; and the failure of other officers at the scene to intervene to stop the use of excessive force.

She also testified at length about departmental protocol around the use of maximal restraint technique, which involves using a hobble device — a tethered rope used to restrain a subject’s ankles and secure them at the waist — and the training that goes into the use of maximal restraint technique. That training includes the need to notify a supervisor if you’re going to use the technique and the extreme risk to suspects if they are left in the prone position. Officers are also trained to “closely monitor suspects” if they are having trouble breathing. This practice has since been banned.

Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd’s neck and back for 9 minutes, 29 seconds. Floyd repeatedly said he could not breathe.

Blackwell also stated that what Chauvin did to Floyd was not the maximal restraint technique that the department trains officers to use.

Collin’s book and film accused Blackwell of lying, and several of those moments are highlighted in the lawsuit, including three excerpts from the book which state that “it doesn’t seem like Inspector Blackwell knows how MPD officers are trained — or maybe she was lying.” Another that questions whether she, former Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo and Minneapolis Police Lt. Johnny Mercil were telling the truth, and another instance where the book argues that Blackwell and other experts for the prosecution were “lying by omission, if not lying outright.”

In “The Fall of Minneapolis,” one of Collin’s major arguments is that witnesses for the prosecution lied about the department’s training around maximal restraint technique and that was used to convict Chauvin.

Blackwell argues in her lawsuit that maximal restraint technique was taught by the Minneapolis Police Department, but says it was not the technique that Chauvin used to kill Floyd.

The lawsuit points to a clip of Blackwell testifying that the technique used by Chauvin was not part of department training. The film then cuts to a scene of Collin interviewing Carolyn Pawlenty, Chuavin’s mother, and saying that “several witnesses” testified that maximal restraint technique “was not a part of Minneapolis Police policy.”

The lawsuit argues that “this statement conveys the impression that Blackwell herself testified to that effect, which is plainly untrue.”

Chauvin is then interviewed in the film about his training with maximal restraint technique, and a page from a department training manual about the technique is shown.

The lawsuit argues, “In the film’s deceptive framing and editing, Collin and Chaix lie about the nature of Blackwell’s testimony with the hope that the viewer will believe that Blackwell perjured herself by stating that the MRT was not part of police policy. In reality, Blackwell testified that she did not recognize the technique used by Chauvin as any technique officers are trained to use, including the MRT.”

The lawsuit notes that the film concludes later that Blackwell “turned her back on the city of Minneapolis and implies that Blackwell’s testimony was responsible in part for a whole host of public safety concerns.” That includes a spike in crime, a dramatic drop in the ranks of sworn Minneapolis police officers and “general deterioration of the city.”

“The Fall of Minneapolis” has been viewed more than 2.8 million times on YouTube, where it is available for free, and the lawsuit notes the film has surged back into the public consciousness after Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was selected as the Democratic nominee for vice president.

On Monday afternoon, GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance campaigned in front of the Third Precinct police station in Minneapolis, which was destroyed during unrest following Floyd’s murder.

The lawsuit has been assigned to Judge Edward Wahl of Minnesota’s Fourth Judicial District.

Star Tribune staff writer Liz Sawyer contributed to this report.