The Minneapolis city council’s committee on policy and government voted unanimously to settle a federal lawsuit filed by a Minneapolis man who was brutally beaten and jailed for seven months based on false information provided by an officer.
Andre Moore, 51, was detained and beaten during a traffic stop in 2019. Minneapolis police officers Tony Partyka, Neal Walsh and others forced Moore from his vehicle and beat him unconscious, breaking his nose in the process. The stop was for a reported turn signal violation.
A few months later, after Moore complained about the use of force, Partyka lied to get a search warrant to execute a no-knock raid on Moore's home, leading to his arrest and imprisonment for 7 months before charges were dismissed. Partyka labeled the investigation “Moore Money, Moore problems.” One of Moore’s public defenders said she was concerned that the informant Partyka had used did not exist.
“In a premediated act of revenge, Partyka fabricated and/or misrepresented evidence to a Hennepin County judge in order to falsely obtain a search warrant for Moore’s residence. Partyka, a beat cop who had absolutely no prior experience doing investigations of any kind, obtained the warrant by falsely telling the judge that he had found baggies containing drugs in a trash bin outside Moore’s residence and that a so-called confidential and reliable source had observed Moore selling drugs at the property,” Moore’s legal team said.
The settlement comes as Minneapolis Police are under heavy scrutiny for decades of discrimination, as described by two investigations by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights and the Federal Department of Justice. Last year, prosecutors dropped charges against another Minneapolis man after concerns were raised that an officer used a fake informant to get a warrant.
In the past year, Minneapolis has had to pay over $60 million for police misconduct since 2010.
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