The arrest of a 31-year-old armed man following an 8-hour standoff in south Minneapolis last week illustrates the danger officers face when serving arrest warrants.
Hennepin County Sheriff's deputies were trying to serve a felony arrest warrant near West 28th Street and Nicollet Avenue one week ago, knocking on the apartment door.
Then, they heard multiple shots fired, an all-too-common experience for law enforcement.
Use of Force Expert Joe Dutton says officers are highly-trained to deal with those kinds of situations, but the dangers are real.
"Warrants inherently are just very dangerous, because you don't know all the circumstances that surround everything," Dutton says. "You know some things, but you don't know everything."
Dutton says judges issue warrants and, depending on the person and the potential for violence, they can serve different styles of warrants.
"Especially if the person is deemed dangerous, then those warrants will be conducted by a SWAT team," Dutton explains. "They won't be conducted by officers on the street."
Hennepin County Sheriff's deputies were attempted to serve an arrest warrant for Tyler O'Brien when he allegedly fired at them, leading to the hours-long standoff. Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt told WCCO's Adam and Jordana that it's a constant concern for law enforcement.
"They face that potential every time they put on a uniform and out in the public," Witt explains. "They were there to execute an arrest warrant, but, you know, one of the other things is like our civil deputies who are serving papers and things like that, all of their jobs are dangerous. Our patrol, our undercovers. But when going back to that event, I want to take a moment to thank all the law enforcement partners for their quick coordination and teamwork during that Tuesday's critical incident."
Dutton praised all those involved for deescalating the situation, and ending it without any injuries to law enforcement, or O'Brien.
"They did a great job all around," he says. "That was a well conducted, well conducted, procedure for them. I mean, I thought they did great. It was by the book and it worked out."
He says while they are special trained to handle many kinds of situations, serving warrants is the most difficult job that law enforcement officer face.
Witt also went on to say that safety for law enforcement comes in "numbers," and that is becoming more of a challenge as well.
"Hearing and reading about the reports, and when they went to execute that warrant, this is exactly why we in law enforcement have to talk about making sure that there's safety in numbers," Witt adds. "It seems like underfunding is the new defunding law enforcement, and we've really got to talk about those things."
Witt says just last year, they were fully-staffed in Hennepin County, but already are down 30 officers, "just that fast."
"I will be continuing to advocate to increase our staffing and to make sure that we have the resources we need to do this job safely," Witt says.
Rumors and the public's response is also concerning
Last week after the stand-off, Lisa Clemons of A Mother's Love, a group that works to intervene in the community before violence occurs, explained to WCCO's Adam and Jordana that she was on the scene and she had to combat misinformation that was taking place. She said there were blatant attempts from people who showed up to spread misinformation, and claiming actions took place that didn't happen.
"When I arrived on the scene, they were doing Facebook lives, saying that the police had just killed a Black man," Clemons said about the rumors that were not even remotely true.
O'Brien is a white man, and law enforcement didn't shoot him.
"Some of them were saying he was unarmed, and I thought, oh my God, is that true? So I reached out immediately to interim Chief Bill Peterson, Assistant Chief Katie Blackwell, and Sheriff Dewanna Witt," says Clemons. I reached out immediately saying, 'is this true information?' Because they're asking people to come to this scene, and this could get out of control really fast. And they called me immediately saying, oh my God, absolutely not."
Witt says it's all too common, and is a major challenge for law enforcement to get the proper messaging out immediately.
"That is a huge problem," Witt said. "I'm very grateful for, Lisa Clemons and her Mother's Love, as well as our other community members who are out there trying to accurately get the information out. Again, we have to admit that there are people out there who want to cause chaos. It's unfortunate, but it's a fact."
Clemons says she immediately was able to shutdown those rumors, but it is a situation that could quickly spiral out of control.
"So I went across the street, there was a group of young Black men, well, not all young, but a group of Black men, and they were the ones that I saw doing the live (video)," Clemons explains. "And I went and stood in the middle of them and said,' stop it. Stop that rumor right now. Do not invite those people over here.' That is not what's going on. And I told them what was going on, and, you know, they were thankful for it, grateful for it. If you don't tell some of what's happening, they're just going to create their own narrative, and some of it is just to put the police in a bullseye. And I can't have that."
"They face that potential every time they put on a uniform and out in the public," says Sheriff Dawanna Witt
"They face that potential every time they put on a uniform and out in the public," says Sheriff Dawanna Witt
