MINNEAPOLIS — The Minneapolis Police Department on Thursday released body camera footage of the shooting death of Dolal Idd, the first police-involved fatal encounter since George Floyd’s custodial death in May.
Idd’s father, Bayle Gelle, of Eden Prairie, identified his 23-year-old son as the man shot Wednesday evening at a gas station during a traffic stop for a felony warrant, Law Officer reported.
Police Chief Medaria Arradondo said witnesses confirmed that Idd fired first, the Star Tribune reported. Body camera footage from one officer’s point of view shows the driver of a white sedan attempting to flee. The motorist collides with a police unit as an officer points a weapon at the vehicle and orders, “Hands up, police!”
The motorist reverses and another police cruiser pins the car on the driver’s side before what sounds like at least one shot fired from inside the vehicle. Officers then return fire and several gunshots are heard.
It was unclear how many shots were fired. The newspaper identified the officers involved as Darcy Klund, Paul Huynh and Jason Schmidt. It was not clear from which officer’s camera the footage was taken.
Gelle told the newspaper his son was the motorist killed by police, while claiming, “The police, they are brutality.”
Police did not discuss details of the felony warrant that led them to pull Idd over, Fox News reported.
Online court records showed a string of minor traffic charges against Idd, a felony theft conviction in 2018 and a felony drug conviction in 2017. The records included a birth date that would make Idd 23 years old. They did not summarize the cases.
The records also included a misdemeanor conviction in 2019 for carrying a pistol in a public place. The Star Tribune reported that charges in the case said Idd fired a gun in the basement shower of his parents’ home in suburban Eden Prairie with two children sleeping nearby. Idd, a Somali-American, was later arrested with a handgun that had been reported stolen in North Dakota.
Arradondo said the traffic stop was initiated by a police community response team — long-standing units that respond to situations such as drug investigations and gun crime.
