May 31, 2009 - The family of Fong Lee has announced it plans to go forward with an appeal. The family and community groups yesterday held a rally in St. Paul to protest this week's decision in the Fong Lee case. A federal jury found that a Minneapolis police officer did not use excessive force in the 2006 shooting death of 19-year old Lee. Lee's family has claimed that Lee was unarmed and alleges that officers planted a gun near his body. Officer Jason Andersen and the city of Minneapolis have maintained that it was Lee's gun, and that Andersen fired in fear for his life. Tou Ger Xiong from the Coalition for Community Relations says the Minneapolis police department is guilty of police brutality.
June 3, 2009 - As the recession continues, there are signs that more commercial building owners in Minneapolis are struggling to make ends meet. If the trend continues, officials worry that could mean more hazardous vacant buildings in the city, and they've launched a new effort to clean them up. Reporter Jess Mador has more.
June 5, 2009 - Today the family of Fong Lee filed a request for a new trial. Last week a jury ruled that Minneapolis police officer Jason Andersen did not use excessive force when the officer shot and killed Lee in 2006.
June 11, 2009 - Twin Cities police have shut down two high-end prostitution rings in the past month. The first was a club of businessmen and professionals that called itself the Nice Guys, allegedly operated by a former assistant Hennepin County Attorney. That bust led to Web-based escort service called "My-Fast-Pass-dot-com." Both services used the internet to arrange encounters. To find out how the Web is changing prostitution and changing the ways police deal with it we called up Ron Weitzer. He's a sociologist at George Washington University, who has written extensively on the criminology of prostitution.
June 26, 2009 - A judge has rejected a request by the family of Fong Lee for a new trial.
July 22, 2009 - The mother of Fong Lee has filed an appeal of the family's wrongful death lawsuit to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.
July 22, 2009 - The father of a Kasota man killed on Monday says the family is planning to take legal action against a sheriff's deputy who fired the fatal shots. Tyler Heilman's father, Mark, says his 24-year old son was shot at least three times, although he was unarmed. A spokesman for the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension says plainclothes LeSueur County deputy Todd Waldron was working on another case when he saw Heilman speeding and driving erratically. Mark Heilman said witnesses told him the two struggled briefly in a parking lot.
July 23, 2009 - Minneapolis officials say violent crime is at historically low levels throughout the city. They say the dip in serious crime is largely due to police officers cracking down on youth violence, illegal guns and repeat offenders. However, in some neighborhoods, crime is down because criminals have had to move out.
August 17, 2009 - An attorney representing a man who was punched and kicked by several Minneapolis police officers six months ago says he and his client are considering suing the police department. Attorney Paul Edlund recently released a videotape which shows his client Derryl Jenkins was lying face down in a snowbank as the officers beat him. The officers alleged that Jenkins assaulted an officer, but the charge was later dropped. Edlund says Jenkins agreed to make the video public to make more people aware of police brutality.
August 17, 2009 - The FBI has agreed to review a video depicting Minneapolis police officers using force to subdue a man during a February traffic stop. At one point the squad car camera shows several officers kicking and punching 42-year-old Derryl Jenkins as he is lying on his stomach in a snowbank. Officers claimed Jenkins was speeding and that he fought with officers. But those charges were later dropped. And Jenkins' lawyer has not ruled out suing the police department.