Crime

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) ― On the morning of Sept. 13, Mark Loesch's body was found beaten in a yard about a mile from his home. It took almost two months of difficult detective work to arrest a suspect in the death of the Minneapolis father of four.

Donald Eugene Jackson was charged with the murder on Nov. 5. Police said he admitted to dealing marijuana the night of Loesch's death. Jackson has a previous conviction for robbing and beating up a pizza delivery man in 2003. That man lived.

The detectives who worked on Loesch's case, Charlie Adams and Richard Zimmerman, were known within the police department to be two of the best. Their investigations led to an arrest last year in the case of Courtney Brown, a boy killed over a retro basketball jersey. When he announced the arrest, the detectives' then-boss, Lt. Lee Edwards, called them "Thunder and Lightning."

However, when their new boss, Lt. Amelia Huffman, announced the arrest in the Loesch case, Zimmerman and Adams didn't agree with the potential motive she offered for the crime. She told the press Loesch may have been involved in a drug deal.

"The information we received from the drug dealers was that this was a drug transaction," she said.

Her words alarmed Loesch's family who said they asked her not to say them because they believed it wasn't true. They talked with her moments before the Nov. 5 press conference.

"She said that she was going to do that because she felt she had a higher duty to the public to be transparent and to let them know what she knew," David Barnes, Mark's father-in-law recalled.

Loesch's family called Zimmerman and Adams. They apologized for their boss' statements, saying they didn't believe the drug theory because there was no evidence to back it up. A week later, the detectives told a Star Tribune reporter about the apology.

"We thought it was a very courageous and honorable thing to do," said Barnes.

A little more than a week after that, Adams was told he was being reassigned from the prominent homicide unit, where he'd been for five and half years, to the investigations unit in the Fourth Precinct. Zimmerman was not reassigned.

Police Chief Tim Dolan said the reassignment was due to "insubordination" in this case and previous incidents. He declined to offer more specific details.

Huffman could not comment on this case but said, "This decision, like other personnel matters, reflects the department's need to preserve effective operations and the ability to investigate and provide police service."

Loesch's family is angry and his wife feels partly to blame.

"It's hard enough to try to go on," said Barnes. "She feels responsible for that, and it's just another thing that shouldn't be happening. She feels like none of this should be happening."

John Delmonico, head of the Police Officer's Federation, said he is disappointed with Dolan. The union's legal counsel met on Thursday to discuss any action in this case.

Delmonico also said he's working on filing a grievance for Adams. He said Adams has no documented discipline cases in his file.

City Councilman Ralph Remington said he's "disturbed" Adams is the fourth high-profile African-American to be demoted in the past few years. He's also concerned the veteran investigator is out of the homicide unit.

"This is an officer you'd want in the unit. He has those relationships in the street," he said.

On Friday morning, a group of African-American leaders met with the press to talk about their anger surrounding this case.  Community activist Spike Moss called Adams a bridge between the police and the African-American community.  For more video of this press conference, click here.

"It seems like they're against us having a bridge in which we can communicate with officers, get what we want on behalf of our community and work together," Moss said.

But another African-American community activist, Rev. Mary Flowers-Spratt, said Friday, this case had nothing to do with race, but rather Adams' attitude with his supervisor.  To read her entire statement, click here.

"Lt. Amelia Huffman is one officer that is fair and again I support her 100%. You can take that to the bank," she said.

The Loesch family feels Adams' transfer seems like another "outrageous twist in this strange case," said Barnes. One, it seems many wish, would just go away.

"The family just wants to get on with life," said Barnes.

 

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