The city of Minneapolis filed a motion to dismiss two cases that allege after George Floyd’s death, city leaders’ actions led to significant business losses near the square.

One lawsuit is “Cup Foods (which is now Unity Foods) vs. City of Minneapolis,” and the other is “Businesses vs. City of Minneapolis.”

The businesses in the second lawsuit are: Just Turkey; CDBA&J, LLC; Covet Consign & Design LLC; Finish Touch Co.; Ralph’s VIP Barber Lounge LLC; Sincere Detailing Pros – LLC; Smoke In The Pit; and Stillwater Companies, LLC.

“We had to lie on the ground. We saw a guy get shot in the shoulder,” Edwin Reed, Sincere Detailing Pros owner, said, remembering an experience from 2020. “It was pretty, pretty scary at that point.”

Reed said that after the death of George Floyd, the alley behind the square became a war zone.

“As you see, all the bullet holes are here. We were standing right there, some bullets were hitting the garbage can,” Reed said. “We called for the cops to come to help us, based off what we saw, and we thought we were going to get killed. They declined service to us.”

Clients entered his business through the alley.

But in 2020, when the city put up barricades near 38th and Chicago for over a year, Reed said the corridor became a racetrack for cars and a hotspot for crime.

“Drive by shootings and they had to put speed bumps out here over a course of time to keep the people from speeding down here,” Reed said.

His clients stopped coming, and his bottom line suffered.

“The stuff that I saw, it was totally uncalled for. When we asked for help as taxpayers, we never got that help,” Reed said. “They just left us here to fend for ourselves. They left us here basically to die, all the stuff that I’ve seen.”

Reed is a part of nine different businesses, between both lawsuits, suing the city of Minneapolis. They allege the city withdrew police protection from the square and blocked the street with barriers, leading to businesses losing millions of dollars.

Michael Healey, Wagner, Falconer & Judd, LTD, director of litigation, said the city filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuits.

“They’re continuing to drag the business owners here through the court process. They’ve been given multiple opportunities to settle the suits, but they’ve refused to do that to this point,” Healey said.

In 2021, the city launched a forgivable loan program for a total of $1.5 million for businesses near the square.

City records show Sincere Detailing Pros received $50,000.  

“Many of my clients never got that money,” Healey said. “The ones that did, that doesn’t nearly begin to address the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars as a collective that were lost by these businesses.”

The City of Minneapolis said in a statement that it cannot comment on pending litigation.

In that statement, city officials did not speak to the timeline the lawsuit is referring to, but they did send information about the last couple of years as far as crime statistics.

Chief Brian O’Hara assigned two officers to the 38th and Chicago area in 2023, and since then, the data shows crime has decreased.

Regarding the “Businesses vs. City of Minneapolis” lawsuit, the plaintiffs will argue against the motion to dismiss in court in August.

For the other motion to dismiss the Cup Foods lawsuit, the plaintiff has already argued in court. The judge is expected to make a decision in the coming days.

For Related Stories: Brittney Ermon  George Floyd  George Floyd Square  Lawsuit  Minneapolis