Minneapolis PD spends our tax money on secret video people at OccupyHomes Cruz protest

[annm4peace]

Minneapolis Police Department 3rd Precinct directed an unknown city employee to videotape protesters at the Cruz House - 4044 Cedar Ave S - on June 11 2012. The incident commander declined to explain which Minneapolis department was burning through tax dollars so this woman could videotape mainly Occupy Minneapolis protesters engaged in First Amendment protected activity.

A Crime Lab van was spotted onsite as well - http://pic.twitter.com/jIVBkXQX - and the woman operating the video camera was wearing blue latex type gloves. A second woman was also present with her - they seemed to arrive together. The camera woman was wearing a t-shirt which said "MPD" which in turn begs the question of how much city tax money is being squandered on handing out branded police swag to city employees. (and if the Crime Lab were researching the criminal complex of Freddie Mac control fraud & abuse of banking errors making families homeless in the city, instead of videotaping protesters, the economy would improve for everyone and perhaps fraudsters might go to jail).

This is not the first time this year the Minneapolis Police Department Crime Lab unit has been deployed to videotape First Amendment protected expression in the city - on April 7th 2012 they were also used to videotape. (That time, MPD posted their video online and claimed it was un-edited, and subsequently toggled the Youtube auto-stabilization filter - an editing function - because it was really shaky).

With increasing crime in the city this year, is it appropriate to secretly deploy likely Crime Lab civilian personnel to videotape protesters instead of solving crimes? Who is making these decisions, and who takes accountability for the tradeoffs? How much effort is MPD putting into compiling video and surveillance materials on protesters?


The fight save the Cruz family homes and end foreclosures just won't quit. How much has the city of Minneapolis wasted on protecting the interests of the banks??

Just shows you that even so called liberal controlled Democrat (DFL) Minneapolis pubic leaders still work for the banks and not the people. Makes it harder and harder to vote DFL.. and why the Green Party is gaining voters.

* to keep up to date on how MN citizens are fighting foreclosure and for ideas check out the facebook site (it's more update to date than the website)

https://www.facebook.com/OccupyMN

[annm4peace]

1. from twitter

MPD policy 5-105 violated. EMPLOYEES to give name upon requesT

[annm4peace]

2. Occupy: Minneapolis Mayor's Words Not Matching Actions On Foreclosure

(this is from two weeks ago, May 31st).... 1 week adn 1/2 later Mpls still wasting our tax dollars)

Occupy Minnesota activists are convinced Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak is saying one thing and doing another when it comes to evicting homeowners.
David Cruz is the owner of the home in South Minneapolis that has been subjected to a series of police actions about foreclosure,

Cruz interprets the Mayor's statement of the previous day that Minneapolis was not in the foreclosure business to mean that police actions at the home would be suspended.Yet the previous afternoon the property was raided by a substantial force of police and firemen.


The angry crowd went to the mayor's office and asked if the mayor had lost control of the police force or was he not telling the truth. about 20 people moved in to the mayor's outer office and demanded a meeting with Mayor Rybak and David Cruz. The request was denied, but later the group stopped the mayor in the hallway for an impromptu meeting.

The lender trying to evict the Cruz family is Freddie Mac. Occupy Minnesota activist Nick Espinosa says a protest is planned on Monday for outside Freddie Mac's national headquarters in Washington, DC to demand it back off on trying to evict the Cruz family.


Ask Mayor Rybak who is he working for.

Mayor's Office
350 S. 5th St., Room 331
Minneapolis, MN 55415
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]

[limpyhobbler]

3. Those guys are awesome. nt

[Jessica3344]

4. Spam deleted by gkhouston (MIR Team)

[HenryCorp]

5. Clearly Need a Higher Power than the Mayor and Police

That's why a couple weeks ago I setup a petition directed at a more powerful and sympathetic to bad debt collection practices MN Attorney General: http://signon.org/s/OR8knH Please add your name (name, email, zip is all that's required; they can verify directly with you to audit the petition).