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by Mike Padden (Author)
In May 2013, a young black man named Terrance Franklin was being pursued by a large contingent of officers of the Minneapolis Police Department. After an intensive afternoon search, a SWAT team found Franklin holed up in the basement of a South Minneapolis home. In the series of events that followed, two SWAT team members suffered gunshot wounds and Terrance Franklin was subsequently shot to death. The team of officers reported that Franklin took control of one officer's semi-automatic gun and shot two of the five-member team during the ensuing melee. An in-house investigation by the MPD supported the SWAT team's written reports that indicating that Terrance Franklin accessed an officer's gun, shooting two of the officers before being being shot to death himself. They almost got away with it. Mike Padden, a Minnesota attorney and the author of this book, assembled and led a team of lawyers, investigators, and experts to discover the truth-that Terrance Franklin was actually murdered in cold blood. The book explains how the Padden team dismantled the sham investigation by MPD, obtaining a successful outcome for Terrance Franklin's family by means of wrongful death litigation. Padden does not stop with the shocking details of the Franklin case. Through the examination of several other cases where civil rights violations occurred, the book, "The Minneapolis Police Department: Blue Code of Silence," reveals a pattern of conspiracy utilized by the MPD to cover up their illegal activities. Throughout the book, Padden emphasizes how the use of video has revolutionized the investigation of police conduct in and outside of Minneapolis.
