New Minneapolis Prosecutor Sparks Hope of Reopening Case of Terrance Franklin: Family Says Police Murdered Black Man to Cover-Up a Cop's Errant Gun Discharge that Injured Other Officers

From [HERE] Last month, in the weeks leading up to the third anniversary of the murder of George Floyd, the Minneapolis City Council voted to settle two additional lawsuits brought by other Black people whom former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on. The largest payout, $7.5 million, went to John Pope, who was 14 and in his bedroom in 2017 when Chauvin pressed his knee on the boy’s back and neck for 15 minutes. A magistrate took the unusual step of ordering the body camera footage made public, calling it a “premonition of the same force later used” on Floyd.

The footage also showcased the troubling command culture of the Minneapolis Police Department. After Chauvin has had his knee on Pope for more than 10 minutes, his sergeant walks in, sees what’s happening, appears to ask if Chauvin needs a break, nods, and walks out.

The sergeant, Lucas Peterson, by then had already caused the death of a Black suspect in a choke hold, and filed a false report in another case, claiming a Black woman had assaulted his partner. He was also one of two officers who, four years earlier, had shot and killed a 22-year-old Black man named Terrance Franklin.

But if the Franklin case escaped scrutiny at the time, many things changed after Chauvin killed Floyd. This past November, voters in Hennepin County, Minn., elected a chief prosecutor, Mary Moriarty, who campaigned on a promise of prosecuting police, and, local police chiefs tell TIME, specifically called out Franklin’s death.

The killing of Terrance Franklin by Minneapolis police in 2013 was the result of a confluence of things, according to Mike Paddin, his family’s attorney. Padden surmised that the cops were mad at Franklin because they thought he had tried to run over an officer when he took off and led them on a chase through South Minneapolis. They needed a scapegoat to cover up for an errant discharge of an MP5 submachine gun.

“I think in their mindset, this was not premeditated, this was a quick knee-jerk reaction,” said Padden. “They grabbed him, took him into that little room, closed the door, and straight-up executed him.”

Franklin was killed on May 10, 2013, after officers cornered him in a South Minneapolis home following a police chase. He was pursued by police after they approached him for questioning as a possible burglary suspect. After seeing an officer draw her weapon on him, Franklin drove away and later fled on foot.

Once Franklin was located by a police K9 unit in the basement of an Uptown home, MPD officers descended onto the scene and surrounded the home. At this point, SWAT officers Mark Durand, Michael Meath, Ricardo Muro, and Lucas Peterson had entered the home.

What happened after this is contested by Franklin’s family, but the officers involved in the killing allege that Franklin attacked the K9 and knocked officer Meath across the room.

He then turned to punch Peterson and grabbed Durand’s MP5 submachine gun, pulled the trigger, and injured officers. Peterson then recounts how he lunged at Franklin and managed to fire several rounds into his skull with another round coming from the injured Meath.

None of the officers were immediately interviewed after they killed Franklin. Two were taken to the hospital and weren’t interviewed for two weeks, while the others gave their statements days later. MPD policy allows its officers to talk to each other and corroborate their stories and bars them from being interviewed for days.

Later that year, a grand jury found that there was not enough evidence to bring charges against the officers involved in Franklin’s death. At the time, MPD investigated its own officers when there was a police-involved shooting and they concluded that the officers, in this case, acted within their rights and cleared them of any wrongdoing.

Though it wasn’t documented in Primeau’s report, Padden believes that MPD officers used the N-word towards Franklin in the moments leading up to his death and displayed racial hostility. 

Padden had also hired R. Steven Rogers, a local private investigator, and Richard Ernest, a firearm forensics expert, to add to the investigation. The two worked together to reconstruct Franklin’s shooting by creating a 3-D model that depicted what took place according to crime-scene investigators and the medical examiner’s notes.

Franklin had been shot a total of 10 times. Five of those shots were to his head. An image from the crime scene shows two bullet holes on a door an inch apart. Investigators inferred that these two bullets, which came from different guns, were shot at the same time.

Another photo from the crime scene was of a single dreadlock from Franklin that had been left on the floor. This painted a grim picture for Padden and his team about what took place in that basement.

The lawsuit also alleged that it was Durand who had fired his own gun that injured his fellow officers and that killing Franklin was a means to a coverup. To explain how Franklin’s DNA was found on the MP5’s trigger, Padden and his team reasoned that after Durand had handed off his gun to an MPD officer, that same officer placed his fingers on Franklin’s body to detect a pulse without a glove. 

The officer would go on to say that he had worn gloves when touching Franklin but removed them when handling the gun that contained his DNA as well. Franklin’s hands were not tested for gunshot residue on the MP5.

Officer Peterson’s involvement in Franklin’s killing raised many questions for Padden and those who were familiar with his history in the department. Peterson had been the subject of 13 excessive force complaints, many of which the city had settled for hundreds of thousands of dollars. This includes the case of Christopher Burns who died from cardiac arrest after being placed under a chokehold by Peterson. [MORE]