"False Reporting" Law Entraps Woman; Rapist Officers Barnes, Gillies Go Free

What if you were raped and no one believed you?  Now--what if you were raped by the police?  What if their superiors failed to investigate the crime?  What if instead of punishing the rapists, they charged you with the crime of lying about police "misconduct"?

This is what happened to Camille Williams, a black Twin Cities woman.**  Raped by Minneapolis Police Officers Paul Gillies and Miquel Barnes almost two years ago, Williams was subsequently charged with the crime of falsely reporting police misconduct--a charge levied so that, audio recordings tell, the MPD could avoid a civil lawsuit.  After a two and a half week trial, Williams was found guilty by a 6-person Hennepin County jury on Monday, despite allegations of jury misconduct (including one juror sleeping during the trial).  On Tuesday, when Williams was scheduled to be sentenced, the defense successfully argued for a postponement until August 14 based on several pending motions aimed at overturning the decision.

"I didn't lie about a damn thing and here I am, accused of a crime!" Williams says.  Gillies and Barnes, meanwhile, continue to walk the beat.

**Although the rape survivor's name has been reported by corporate media outlets, we are changing it here, even though the callous disregard for survivors of sexual assault (whether proven in the courts of the perpetrator or not) by uncritical pro-police media has already resulted in harm.  Also: Note that the article below may trigger strong and difficult emotions/memories, especially for survivors and others affected by sexual assault and police brutality.

Related: As Summer Heats Up, Testimony Describes MPD as Brutal, Lawless | Rochester, NY IMC: Fighting Police Brutality with Video | Bay Area IMC: Oakland Police Kill Unarmed Fleeing Black Man

The prosecution's case - and the coverage from major media like the Star Tribune and KSTP - hinged on a squad car GPS device which purportedly showed Gillies' and Barnes' car away from what Williams identified as the crime scene.  The GPS system is sold to police departments under the premise that it can help to avoid civil suits.  That seems to be what it was used for here, though not necessarily because it uncovered the facts, say victim advocates.

Testimony during the trial showed how the device can be tampered with.  A squad driver pushing the "ARRIVE" button on the dash, indicating he has arrived at the location to which he was dispatched, can stop the recording of GPS data until the car moves 100 feet or more.  At that point, an officer could disable the transmitter by blocking the antenna or disconnecting a wire.  The officer can then drive wherever he wants without being recorded by the GPS; after driving back to within 100 feet of the original point, he can reconnect the wire, and no record will have been made of his movements.

An MPD operational expert testified that disconnecting the GPS transmitter wire could easily be done with no technical expertise required, and that he's seen the wires disconnected in the past.  Furthermore, even if no tampering was done by an officer at the scene, changing the log files at a central computer would not be a difficult operation.  Because the defendant Williams was presumed innocent until proven guilty, the burden was on the prosecution to prove that the report of rape was false beyond a reasonable doubt.  The ability to tamper with the device, especially combined with the MPD's propensity for evidence tampering, easily creates a reasonable doubt in regard to the GPS, says the defense.

Officer Gillies himself was in the courtroom Tuesday, prepared to give a statement at the sentencing before Hennepin County Judge Tanya Bransford.  But defense attorney Jill Clark, known for taking on police brutality cases that have also made herself a target of police and right-wing harassment, put a halt to what was to be the subsequent police-led media spectacle.

Among the motions filed by the defense were motions for acquittal, for a new trial, and for a Schwartz hearing: a special hearing regarding juror conduct and misconduct.  Williams could not have received a fair trial, Clark said, in particular due to one juror she referred to as "Juror G" who did not listen attentively during the case.  After speaking with courtwatchers and being approached by a different juror regarding Juror G's conduct, Clark filed an affidavit about his behavior, "including, but not limited to, sleeping during trial."  Juror G, she said, appeared to have made up his mind on the 3rd day of the case, before defense arguments could be made; after the 3rd day, his behavior included dramatic gestures that appeared to be aimed at discrediting defense arguments in the eyes of other jurors.  He then "forcefully lobbied the jury" for a guilty verdict.

Although the defense raised the issue during trial, it was only after consulting with community members watching the case that the full extent of Juror G's behavior became known.  In addition, Clark was told that two jurors entered one morning during the trial to learn that a foreperson had been elected in their absence.  The jury was made up of five men and one woman; Assistant Minneapolis City Attorney Judd Gushwa had used most of his peremptory strikes to eliminate potential women jurors.  Additionally, the jury was all white except for one black man; the alternate juror was a black woman. 

After a trial that lasted over two weeks, the jury deliberated for about 2 hours before announcing the verdict after the end of the workday on Monday.  According to one courtwatcher, the black juror was nearly in tears after the verdict.  As the judge asked jurors to confirm their decision, his response was barely audible.  A person from the gallery who spoke with that juror afterwards reported that it appeared extremely likely he did not believe Williams was guilty, but that he caved under intense pressure to return such a verdict.

Bransford ordered that pending further action in the case, neither the prosecution, nor defense, nor their representatives are to have any contact with the jurors.

In a separate matter, Clark also argued against the prosecution's request for the maximum allowable $3,000 restitution, noting that no testing of evidence was done until after Williams was charged with false reporting, and that there was no actual investigation whatsoever into the allegations of rape.  In fact, she related, from almost the very beginning, authorities were bent on preventing civil litigation against the police department - not on investigating the actual events of July 28, 2007.

Early that morning, Minneapolis police were called to a personal dispute.  They instructed Williams to leave the scene and walk down the street to a bus stop.  No such stop existed--it was a trap.  Before long, Williams says, Barnes, under the direction of his veteran partner Gillies, raped her in an alley.

She sought aftercare at nearby North Memorial Medical Center, which, along with HCMC and Regions hospitals, is known for colluding with police against the will of patients.  Despite begging a nurse not to call the cops, the nurse did anyway.  Plainclothes officers entered Williams' hospital room; not knowing they were officers, and still traumatized in the hours immediately after the assault, Williams then made the statements for which she was later charged with "false reporting."  The nurse, meanwhile, was recorded talking to police officers in the hospital about how to prevent a potential civil suit against the cops, and pressured Williams to speak to the unidentified officers.

Williams' clothes were locked in an evidence room; some of the evidence was later unsealed for use by the defense, but some was missing.  Two nearly identical sanitary pads were later analyzed by the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension; how two ended up as evidence is a mystery, since only one was originally collected.  The BCA claimed to identify sperm cells on one of the pads that ruled out Gillies and Barnes as perpetrators via DNA evidence.  But another lab's investigator found no sperm cells and testified that there is good reason to believe the pad was not actually the one worn by Williams at the time of the rape.

After a press conference was called by victim advocates at the Urban League soon after the incident, MPD Internal Affairs' Sargeant Troy Schoenberger quickly filed police reports to send to the city attorney's office.  Charges under the false reporting law were then filed on August 1, 2007.

For his part, prosecutor Gushwa - himself an ex-cop - was combative on Tuesday, calling Clark's arguments "baseless accusations and self-serving affidavits" and demanding to know from the judge whether she was going to grant the motion for postponing sentencing before addressing the arguments himself.  He asked whether the court would "re-victimize my victim [referring to the police officers, not Williams] by having ongoing court hearings," and pushed the judge to "hear the statement of one of the victims [Gillies] in this case."  Bransford, however, refused to proceed and gave the city until July 28th to submit responses to the arguments, gave the defense an extra two days to prepare affidavits and supplementary arguments, and rescheduled sentencing for August 14 at 9am in room 1959 of the Hennepin County courthouse.

The False Reporting Law and Systemic Racism

Police officers who are the subject of what would otherwise be First Amendment-protected criticism became "victims" in the eyes of Minnesota law in 2005, when the legislature passed the false reporting law. The law is actually an expansion of Minnesota Statue 609.505, "Falsely Reporting Crime," and criminalizes a false report alleging misconduct but not false reports about other police conduct (for example, an officer lying to cover up a partner's crime).  In the 10 years before the law was passed, the MPD Internal Affairs Department upheld no more than two complaints from community members. In 2006, the law was used against a Minneapolis man who, after being brutalized by police during a drug raid, was further beat up and sexually assaulted by guards at the Hennepin County jail.  In 2007, Communities United Against Police Brutality along with individual community members filed a lawsuit to overturn the law.  A similar law was struck down by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in California.

The law calls for a misdemeanor sentence if the false information does not allege a criminal act, and for a gross misdemeanor sentence if it does.  Although rape is clearly criminal, the question of whether a criminal act was alleged was not posed to the jury in this case - and so proceeding as a gross misdemeanor case seems likely, but not certain.  If the guilty verdict stands, Williams is expected to receive some form or another of probation, on top of the de facto punishment of the lengthy, exhausting public trial.

With an appeal extremely likely, Williams' case could be another challenge to the constitutionality of the false reporting law, one that activists and attorneys speculate could be more likely to succeed.  Meanwhile, the case sets a terrifying precedent for those faced with the question of whether or not to report police brutality.  "One case like this, and 100,000 people might choose not to complain," attorney Clark said.

At the time of the rape, Paul Gillies was a "Field Training Officer" partnered with rookie Miquel Barnes, who had been with the department for mere weeks.  The timing of the incident thus raises the issue of initiation: it's a known practice for veteran cops to force rookie cops to do something illegal, in order to have something to hold over their heads later in their career. 

Gillies has been on the force for 20 years, including working on the so-called "Community Response Team," better known in many neighborhoods as the jump-out boys.  The CRT is notorious for raiding and occupying houses in North Minneapolis, pillaging them, and brutalizing the occupants.  It's also known for reports of rape with objects--among them the well-publicized case of a Minneapolis man who, after being the victim of a drug raid, was raped with a plunger in 2003 by MPD Officer Jeffrey Jindra.

Before the hearing Tuesday, Gillies, MPD spokesman Jesse Garcia, and other city officials verbally sparred with community members - who outnumbered them greatly - in the courtroom.  The surreal scene started when Star Tribune reporter Rochelle Olson asked community activist Al Flowers if he "took a shower this morning."  (Flowers, who is running for mayor, claimed he was targeted because of his politics to have a condemnation order posted on his house due to an alleged lack of water.  A city inspector posted the notice last Thursday shortly after Flowers finished showering; Flowers then took video evidence of the water running inside.)  The ensuing scene resulted in a Hennepin County Sheriff's Deputy calling for backup, and other deputies admonishing the entire gallery to be quiet.

At one point community members and the officers exchanged thinly-veiled threats.  One activist said, "Ask Fong Lee what he thinks.  Ask Quincy Smith," referring to two men of color murdered by the MPD.  "He isn't in a position to talk, is he?" said one of the MPD officers, as both of them smirked.

All the deputies and police officers in the courtroom Tuesday were white.  5 of 6 jurors were white, as was the prosecutor.  Individual white police officers, jurors, or prosecutors may not be overt racists; most of the time, they do not belong to hate groups or enact their racism in obvious ways.  But, judging from recent court cases (the Fong Lee civil trial as a prime example) involving police versus people color, overwhelming evidence of white supremacy in action has failed to permeate white-dominated institutions in the criminal justice system.

"If you believe the police officers, then she's guilty," said prosecutor Gushwa in his closing statement to the jury.  In a culture where white folks have been trained to trust the police while so many people of color must fear police for their own safety, this statement represents systemic racism at its ugliest.  Its dubious legal accuracy aside, this statement alone may have been enough to convict a survivor of rape with the courage to speak out, once the lone black juror was intimidated into compliance.  It's not hard to imagine fear that a police encounter of one's own might occur after deciding in a black woman's favor against the MPD.

Forgetting the pretension of the principle of reasonable doubt, Williams' case came down to the word of a woman of color versus the word of the police--the voice of a terrified but brave woman versus a pillar of patriarchy.  Whose voice are we to believe?  Who has the institutional motive to lie?

And, in the words of Jill Clark, "Why should police be able to take advantage of a humiliated, vulnerable person after a rape?"  The false reporting law and the precedent set by this case currently enables police in Hennepin County to do just that.

NOTE:  Comments will be heavily moderated.  Racism, trolling and anyone who wants to argue that women routinely make false rape charges will be deleted as fast as we can hit "unpublish".  Please remember that your remarks may very well be read by a survivor of sexual assault and/or police brutality.