PART 1: Allison Lussier’s Mishandled Case Is Leading to Process Changes — Slowly

Allison Lussier, 47, was found dead in her North Loop apartment on February 22, 2024. Because of a history of domestic violence, her community believes her death was a murder at the hands of a long-time abuser. The handling of her case, both before and after her death, exposed flawed procedures and policies within the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) — flaws that advocates had called attention to for years.

After pressure from the family, the investigation into Lussier’s death is ongoing. After-action reviews of her case — and an also mishandled shooting of Davis Moturi — were published on April 22 by the Minneapolis Office of City Auditor. According to the audit, deficient assessments of risk, inadequate scene documentation, and a chronic misunderstanding of domestic violence — combined with a severe lack of resources across agencies — resulted in crucial delays in care and failed opportunities to charge the abuser.

Amirthini Keefe, at the Domestic Abuse Project office in Northeast Minneapolis. Photo Sarah Whiting

During the nearly two years leading up to her death, twelve 911 calls — nine made directly by Lussier — reported her longtime domestic abuser, Charles Foss, and indicated lethal risk, according to Amirthini Keefe, executive director of the Domestic Abuse Project.

In August 2022, following an initial report made by Lussier in July, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office [HCAO] requested that the MPD submit her case for a rush warrant — a move that would have led to immediate charges filed against Foss. For reasons unclear, the MPD failed to honor this request.

“Had the case been properly submitted for a rush warrant as requested, no investigation would have been necessary before charging,” the after-action review clarifies. However, because the MPD neglected to follow through on the rush warrant, “the assigned investigator proceeded to investigate the case over the course of a four-month period … and [was] largely unable to gather any additional information or evidence, resulting in the investigator’s decision not to submit the case to HCAO for charging consideration.”

The after-action review recommends:

• All domestic abuse cases where the perpetrator is gone-on-arrival now be submitted immediately to the HCAO for charging consideration.
• Increased and improved communication between the MPD and HCAO is needed to rectify friction.
• Both agencies need to revise and tighten their understanding of charge-ability and the charging timeline for high-priority cases such as Lussier’s.

Some of the support group at the Allison Lussier testimony presented to the Minneapolis City Council: (l-r) Olivia Reed, Mike Forcia, Cheryl Thomas (who testified on behalf of Global Rights for Women), Jana Williams, Lissa Yellow Bird-Chase, Nicole Matthew (who testified on behalf of Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition), Kiora Matthews, Janelle Ryland, and Stacey Gurian Sherman. Courtesy photo.

Beyond the missed opportunity to arrest Foss following Lussier’s initial report, more MPD missteps followed. On October 24, 2023, about four months before her death, she made her sixth 911 call. This led to a fifth police report. There were no notes made of the felony statutory elements of strangulation, which Lussier reported. Police failed to gather appropriate witness statements from neighbors present at the time of the call.

Months later, on February 13 and 17, 2024 — just days before her death — Lussier made two police reports. In the latter of the two, officers determined that because the second report came 30 minutes outside of a 72-hour rule, they could not arrest Foss. However, the audit finds that officers did not continue questioning Lussier. Had new allegations against Foss been documented — such as his threat to Lussier’s life — officers could have identified a new offense that could of led to an arrest at this crucial moment in her case.

According to the auditor’s report, initial resistance from the MPD hindered the audit. Multiple officers retired or took leave after the audit was announced and declined to be interviewed. The Office of the City Auditor strongly recommended, but could not require, their cooperation in the after-action review. Former Police Chief Brian O’Hara chose not to mandate cooperation from his officers.

Priority: Improving Co-Advocacy and Communication

While many policies, training protocols, staffing issues, and 911 dispatch response procedures highlighted by the audit contribute to a picture of Lussier’s case that begs for changes, improving co-advocacy is Keefe’s chief concern.

The Minneapolis-based Domestic Abuse Project, or DAP, is an advocacy service for victims of domestic violence, but has been increasingly involved in “system change and system accountability” throughout Keefe’s nine years at the organization.

DAP spent the past year working with the MPD and the HCAO as part of a Domestic Violence Workgroup, which also includes local advocacy organizations Cornerstone and Tubman. The collaborative mission of “the multi-agency coordinated task force” has been to build a new lethality risk assessment tool.

“We spent two years curating and putting this assessment together to identify high risk cases,” Keefe says. The risk assessment was expanded to include more than 12 standard questions. An assessment will be flagged as a high-risk domestic violence case if there are two or more fitting responses.

Testimony at Minneapolis city council in June 2025 about mishandling of the Allison Lussier case

Had history of Lussier’s abuse been better documented and understood, “officers may have considered whether Mr. Foss’ past pattern of conduct amounted to an arrestable offense,” the city auditor notes. However, as the after-action review reveals, risk assessment is only one piece of a crumbling puzzle.

1. Internal interviews with the MPD revealed inaccurate understandings of the overlapping statutory definitions of strangulation and stalking, as investigated by the Sex Crimes Unit and the Domestic Violence Unit.
2. The audit also signals that deep culture change is needed to address the implicit and explicit bias that exists within the police force. Keefe agrees that extensive, holistic training is needed alongside new tools.
3. The audit further recommends that a domestic violence advocate should respond to GOA calls alongside police to support the victim and ensure that the proper documentation is completed.

MPD’s Katie Blackwell has been a strong force for improving domestic violence investigations, community advocates tell us. They also indicate that the city auditor did not talk to them in developing the report to learn about recommendations at the grassroots level.

Says Melissa Scaia, part of the community team working on policy recommendations — alongside Keefe, and members of Cornerstone and Tubman: “Taking out or not bringing into the conversation members of the community is frustrating. We are the representatives of the community.”

Keefe is hopeful that the DV Workgroup’s new risk assessment tool will prove to be helpful. “Anecdotally, officers like the new risk assessment, and the new process. Police reports have more detail in them, and they’re more thorough,” she says. Scene documentation should center the victim; Keefe hopes a direct, standardized assessment will mitigate bias.

Keefe predicts that the risk assessment can potentially “take some of the subjectivity out” of police response by giving space for “a victim to share their truth, and to be believed in a structured, tangible way.”

A pilot of the tool was launched in Minneapolis precincts, and it changed the way officers engaged with victims. “Prior to the pilot, officers might hand the victim the risk assessment and a supplement form to fill out,” Keefe says. However, “best practice is that those are conversations to be had with the victim, which helps build rapport.”

Asking someone who’s just experienced trauma to document everything in a linear fashion is difficult, she adds, but when officers facilitate conversations, victims share more details.

Jana Williams talks about the discrepancies in the deep truths behind the death of Allison Lussier. Photo Sarah Whiting

Building strong relationships between the community and system, as well as between agencies, is a pillar of the DV Workgroup.

As an advocate, Keefe says, she sees so many indications in the history that Lussier said or wrote “that absolutely would have put her at high risk” according to the DV Workgroup’s scale. Lussier’s case exhibited the established history of violence and patterns of escalation that should have been apparent to Minneapolis police.

“Allison’s case highlights what victims are experiencing. That’s why it is vital that change happens and that we keep evaluating to make sure [our response] is effective for survivors,” Keefe says. “If victims don’t trust systems, they won’t use them.”

What Happens Next?

The MPD is experiencing leadership turnover after O’Hara’s departure on May 27 following an investigation into sexual misconduct unrelated to the audit of Moturi’s and Lussier’s cases. With that, and in the aftermath of a Minnesota legislative session that did not pass the “Allison Bill” — influenced by some of the mistakes made in her case — the DV Workgroup and advocates will pay attention to how the risk assessment tool is used as a first step in long-awaited reform. They hope to offer a report in September about the impact and effectiveness of the tool, as part of the validation process.

Because Lussier’s case was initially dismissed as a drug overdose, despite a history of domestic assault, Allison’s Bill will likely be revisited in 2027 — perhaps with a different legislative balance — seeking to strengthen coordination between law enforcement and medical examiners and prevent investigations from closing before an examiner’s review is complete. The 2026 bill, authored by Senator Mary Kunesh, also would have required investigators to examine prior police reports, restraining orders, family information, and other documented evidence of violence.

Since Lussier’s case remains open, more mistakes are being revealed in the after-action review. For one, the MPD did not request her autopsy from the medical examiner until the Office of the City Auditor did — two years after her death. The review criticizes the “premature and contradictory” language used by O’Hara in the initial aftermath of Lussier’s death, as he was quick to blame substance abuse.

As Kunesh told a Minnesota Women’s Press reporter in talking about Allison’s Bill: “This is something that has historically happened to Indigenous people and people of color. Initially the police will [claim it is] a suicide or a drug overdose, and then they won’t do an extensive investigation.”

Moving forward with a new police chief, Keefe hopes that the DV Workgroup can continue exploring “solutions that are survivor-rooted and driven.”

Next up in this series: A conversation with Hennepin County attorney Mary Moriarty

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