MINNEAPOLIS (CN) — A woman sexually assaulted by a former Minneapolis police officer when she was a teenager sued Minneapolis and the officer Monday, claiming that more should have been done to protect her.
The woman, identified as L.M.G. in her complaint, says that David Edward Campbell broke Minneapolis Police Department policy when he took her, then 16 years old, on department "ride-alongs" where he sexually assaulted her while in uniform.
In her complaint filed in the U.S. District Court of Minnesota, the plaintiff claims the city has a history of nonexistent or unenforced policies that led to her sexual assaults.
"Defendant City of Minneapolis is believed to have known, had reason to know, or should have known of the unusual circumstances of the 'ride-alongs' with plaintiff and potentially dangerous propensities of defendant Campbell and failed to protect L.M.G. from the offending employee," she said in her complaint.
In addition to a litany of negligence, assault, battery and Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment claims against Campbell, L.M.G. also brings liability and negligent supervision claims against Minneapolis and its police department.
The Minneapolis Police Department's ride-along program had policy that required, in part, that most participants be older than 18-years-old and that they be assigned to a vehicle with two officers. L.M.G. claims that she went on these ride-alongs with only Campbell, frequently late at night or early in the morning, and said she didn't know if he ever sought permission to conduct the program with a minor.
The plaintiff also claims that Campbell's fellow officers and supervising officers saw her along with him during over 20 ride-alongs.
The plaintiff says there was apparently little oversight, either by Minneapolis or its police department. She claims that the city and the police department failed to investigate previous non-compliance with the city’s ride-along program and permitted “a culture of impunity for officers engaging in inappropriate and unconstitutional conduct.”
She cited recent determinations by the U.S. Department of Justice and the state's Department of Human Rights that the Minneapolis Police Department has a history of violating people’s civil rights and federal law, including a failure to establish policies and procedures to prevent those civil rights violations.
Campbell had 30 complaints filed against him, none of which resulted in discipline, before he was stripped of his law enforcement license, according to Communities United Against Police Brutality, a Minnesota-based police watchdog.
Campbell was convicted in 2018 of two felony counts of criminal sexual conduct, terroristic threats and stalking after L.M.G. reported his abuse to a school social worker. He was later sentenced to 57 months in prison, and was required to register as a predatory offender.
During one of the attacks, Campbell reportedly told the plaintiff to “stop resisting,” a common law enforcement tactic to gain compliance, according to L.M.G. On another ride-along, Campbell “threatened to shoot L.M.G. in the head,” if she told anyone about the abuse, L.M.G wrote in her lawsuit.
Around February 2017, according to the Hennepin County Attorney's Office, Campbell bought the plaintiff underwear and bras and told her to use his phone to take pictures of herself wearing them. A search of Campbell’s vehicle following his arrest uncovered a pair of the plaintiff's underwear.
At the time of the assaults, L.M.G. says in the complaint that she and her family had been staying at Campbell’s house while also living out of various hotels in the Twin Cities area.
The plaintiff is represented by Knutson and Casey, a Minnesota based law firm, and is seeking compensatory damages for her past and future medical treatments related to Campbell’s assaults, as well as punitive damages to discourage future misconduct.
Lawyers for the plaintiff, the city of Minneapolis and the Minneapolis Police Department did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
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