NAACP sues Minneapolis, alleging covert social media surveillance by cops

Updated 6:50 p.m.

Minneapolis NAACP leaders on Wednesday filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Minneapolis over police officers’ alleged use of stealth social media accounts to keep tabs on and criticize Black community leaders.

That allegation came to light last year as part of the Minnesota Department of Human Rights investigation into the MPD’s practices and culture following the May 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

Minneapolis officers posed as Black community members on social media to criticize city officials and members of the NAACP, work that wasn’t part of any criminal investigation, Human Rights Commissioner Rebecca Lucero said at the time.

MPD officers also allegedly used the accounts to track the activity of Minneapolis NAACP members and push racist stereotypes about Black people, the NAACP said in a statement on Wednesday announcing the lawsuit. The group called the “racially discriminatory surveillance” unconstitutional.

The suit seeks monetary and punitive damages and lists the city and 20 unnamed police officers as defendants.

The 2022 MDHR report does not include the names of officers or of the people they are alleged to have targeted for surveillance.

“What the Minneapolis NAACP is seeking is partly some sunlight, to figure out what was the full extent of the harassment. Who were the officers that did this?” said Liliana Zaragoza, director of the University of Minnesota’s Racial Justice Law Clinic. Student attorneys Brandon Redmon, Evan Dale, Lucy Chin and Simon Earle are representing the plaintiffs.

The NAACP’s attorneys point to an instance where an officer posed as a community member and responded to an invitation to a 2017 birthday party and mayoral campaign event for Black civil rights attorney and activist Nekima Levy Armstrong, who ran on a police accountability platform.

In an interview with MPR News on Wednesday, Levy Armstrong said the mood at the gathering, which was held at a Minneapolis restaurant, soured after several uniformed officers sat down near her group. 

“I felt that they were there intentionally, that they were there to intimidate, and their presence definitely had an impact on my guests and the event that I was holding at the time,” Levy Armstrong said. 

Levy Armstrong, who was not interviewed as part of the MDHR investigation, said that when she read the 2022 report, she was surprised to learn that police were monitoring her Facebook activity.

“I thought the only people that were paying attention were those who supported me and supported my campaign,” she said.

Neither the lawsuit nor the MDHR report allege that police hacked citizens’ social media accounts, only that they monitored and interacted with those accounts.

A city of Minneapolis spokesperson said in a statement Wednesday that the city disagrees with the assertion that MPD had used covert social media accounts to spy on Black people, Black organizations or elected officials.

The city attorney’s office said previously that a review found no evidence of improper use of social media by Minneapolis police officers.

The MDHR report is the basis of a 140-page court-enforceable settlement between the state and city that outlines a series of police reforms. The U.S. Justice Department investigation of MPD is still underway and is expected to result in similar court oversight.

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