Target’s Role in Prosecutorial Harm and Mass Incarceration in Minneapolis and Hennepin County

A Receipts Brief to Accompany the Open Letter to the National Baptist Convention

Prepared by frontline organizers in Minneapolis | June 26, 2025

1. Target Funded the Prosecutors Who Over-Policed Black Youth

For years, Target Corporation directly funded the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office (HCAO) under County Attorneys Amy Klobuchar and Mike Freeman. These funds were earmarked for “community prosecution” and “retail crime,” but disproportionately resulted in the criminalization of poor Black neighborhoods in Minneapolis.

At the same time, Target developed close relationships with Minneapolis Police (MPD) through surveillance partnerships like SafeZone, sharing private security footage, and helping fund downtown policing strategies that targeted Black youth and homeless people.

Bottom Line: Target used its wealth and power to demand criminal convictions, fund surveillance-heavy partnerships, and disproportionately criminalize Black communities. Target was not a passive donor. It helped design and promote these prosecutorial initiatives in partnership with local law enforcement.

2. Black Children Were Caught in the Crosshairs:

Target’s financial and strategic influence helped fuel a system that over-criminalized and incarcerated Black teens.

Three Known Cases of Harm

Myon Burrell

• Arrested at age 16 in a high-profile case during Klobuchar’s term as County Attorney.
• Convicted despite lack of physical evidence, with the case later deemed deeply flawed.• Sentence commuted in 2020 after public outcry, organizing, and investigative reporting by the Associated Press.
• Myon served 18 years in prison and is now seeking full exoneration.

Mahdi Ali

• Arrested at 15 years old, and tried as an adult—sentenced to life in prison.
• Target’s influence extended to the trial, where a so-called forensic expert with ties to the company provided key testimony.
• Mahdi’s trial was marred by unreliable evidence and public outcry over wrongful conviction.
• A national campaign is underway to Free Mahdi Ali, now over a decade into a sentence for a crime he did not commit.

Marvin Haynes

• Convicted at age 17 after a deeply flawed case; eyewitness recanted; no physical evidence.
• Served 20 years in prison before his conviction was overturned in 2023.
• Awarded financial compensation after full exoneration.

These three young Black men are not isolated examples—they are emblematic of a system that Target helped fund and shape.

Between the 1990s and early 2000s:

• Prosecutorial practices in Hennepin County ramped up youth sentencing.
• Black boys were tried as adults and subjected to life-altering punishments.
• Surveillance and criminalization in downtown and North Minneapolis intensified.

From 1983 to 2018, Minnesota’s prison population grew by 306%, with Black residents incarcerated at 10× the rate of white residents.

3. The Political Payoff: From County Prosecutor to U.S. Senate

Amy Klobuchar’s aggressive prosecutorial record, bolstered by Target’s support, became a springboard for her political rise to the U.S. Senate. She built her reputation on being “tough on crime,” using cases like Myon Burrell’s to prove her credentials. It was not until public outcry that the flaws of her legacy were fully exposed.

Meanwhile, Black families and communities were left behind to deal with the consequences.

4. Target’s Alliance with MPD and Harsh Prosecutors

This is not a story of passive corporate philanthropy. This is a story of intentional influence over the justice system. Target helped fund and shape policing strategies in Minneapolis, including its controversial SafeZone program in downtown Minneapolis and surveillance partnerships with the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD)—that same department that murdered George Floyd.

MPD has a well-documented history of:

• Racial profiling
• Excessive force
• Illegal stops and searches
• Abuses targeting Black youths and residents

Target’s partnership and financial investments legitimized and empowered this institution, even

as communities called for change.

Why This Matters Now

Target has never:

• Apologized to the families impacted
• Acknowledged its role in unjust prosecutions
• Taken accountability for the harm it funded and enabled

Instead, it has pivoted to DEI rollbacks and political payoffs—attempting to buy back Black trust with a $300,000 donation to the National Baptist Convention. As frontline leaders, we are demanding accountability—not just for what Target promised in 2020, but for what it enabled long before. The National Baptist Convention, and all Black institutions, must reckon with the full weight of this truth before aligning with any corporation that has caused this level of racial harm.

This Is About More Than Retail

This is about corporate complicity in mass incarceration and the systemic targeting of Black youth. Target’s complicity in mass incarceration is not just bad PR---it is a civil and human rights crisis.

• Black children were caged.
• Black families were torn apart.
• Black communities were devastated.

This was done with corporate backing, behind the scenes, in the very city where George Floyd was murdered.

We demand truth. We demand accountability. We demand justice that cannot be bought.

Citations

1. Target’s Funding of the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office

Unicorn Riot – Target’s Relationship with Law Enforcement and Prosecutors

https://unicornriot.ninja/2024/target-junk-science-and-unreliable-testimonies-the-contentious-conviction-of-15-year-old-mahdi-ali/

2. Myon Burrell Case

Associated Press – AP investigation casts doubt on teenager’s murder conviction

https://apnews.com/article/af6545f2945e43c2bd3c61e886907d4a

Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder – Burrell family, activists push for full exoneration

https://spokesman-recorder.com/2021/10/13/myon-burrell-family-supporters-push-for-exoneration/

The Marshall Project – Klobuchar’s tough-on-crime legacy under scrutiny

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/02/28/the-burrell-affair

3. Marvin Haynes Case

CBS News – Marvin Haynes exonerated after nearly 20 years in prison

https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/judge-overturns-murder-conviction-of-marvin-haynes-imprisoned-for-nearly-20-years/

MPR News – Marvin Haynes awarded $1.2M after exoneration

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2023/12/19/marvin-haynes-awarded-compensation

4. Mahdi Ali Case

Unicorn Riot – Target-backed forensic testimony

https://unicornriot.ninja/2024/target-junk-science-and-unreliable-testimonies-the-contentious-conviction-of-15-year-old-mahdi-ali/

FOX 9 – Family pushes for exoneration

https://www.fox9.com/news/mahdi-alis-family-ups-pressure-exoneration-2010-seward-market-killings

FOX 9 – "I’m Not the One" Interview

https://www.fox9.com/news/mahdi-ali-im-not-the-one.amp

5. Target’s Partnership with MPD + Prosecutors

DOJ Report (2023) – MPD’s history of racism and abuse

https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1544536/download

Minnesota Reformer – Target’s SafeZone and surveillance partnerships

https://minnesotareformer.com/2020/06/09/how-minneapolis-biggest-corporations-including-target-funded-policing/

6. Incarceration Trends in Minnesota

Prison Policy Initiative – Minnesota Overview

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/profiles/MN.html

ACLU of Minnesota – Racial Disparities in Sentencing

https://www.aclu-mn.org/en/publications/unequal-justice

by E.

Open Letter to the National Baptist Convention

Open Letter to the National Baptist Convention

June 26, 2025

To the Leadership of the National Baptist Convention:

We write to you out of sacred responsibility and in the spirit of truth.

As Black, faith-rooted organizers and civil rights leaders based in Minneapolis—the very city where police stole George Floyd’s life—we have led the fight for racial justice, police accountability, and corporate responsibility before, during, and after the global uprisings of 2020.

On January 28, 2025, we—Nekima Levy Armstrong, Monique Cullars-Doty, and Jaylani Hussein—issued a national press release announcing a nationwide and indefinite boycott of Target, to begin on February 1, the first day of Black History Month. We launched the boycott with a press conference outside Target’s global headquarters in downtown Minneapolis—the very city where its betrayal began. Our action drew national press and a powerful, multiracial coalition.

Since then, the boycott has been successful, resulting in months of declining revenue and foot traffic, among other indicators. It has also inspired a wave of economic resistance actions across communities (i.e. The Latino Freeze, 40-Day Target Fast, Tesla Takedown, and actions by The People’s Union USA) and successfully pressured other corporations to recommit to DEI to avoid similar fallout.

We launched this boycott because Target quietly abandoned its $2.1 billion commitment to racial equity—a pledge made in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder to support Black-owned businesses, creators, and communities. Instead, the company eliminated diversity roles, severed ties with Black vendors, and dismantled its internal DEI infrastructure.

These rollbacks came amid mounting political pressure from the Trump administration, whose second term has accelerated attacks on Black history, racial equity, immigrant rights, voting rights, public education, dismantling DEI and civil rights offices across federal agencies, and reinstating aggressive federal policing support and militarization. Target’s alignment with authoritarian power was made even clearer when it made its first-ever donation to a presidential inaugural committee—contributing $1 million to the Trump-Vance inauguration.

But Target’s betrayal goes deeper.

Target has also played a disturbing role in reinforcing mass incarceration, particularly in Minneapolis and Hennepin County. For years, Target funded the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, working closely with former prosecutors Amy Klobuchar and Mike Freeman, and promoting a “tough-on-crime” agenda that disproportionately criminalized Black youth. That same office collaborated with the Minneapolis Police Department—a department known for its brutality and systemic racism, the very one that killed George Floyd.

This agenda helped produce several high-profile wrongful convictions of Black teenagers, including:

• Myon Burrell, convicted at 16 and imprisoned for over 18 years before his sentence was commuted in 2020 after investigative reporting by the Associated Press and an intense public campaign by Minneapolis activists demanding his release. He is now seeking full exoneration.
• Marvin Haynes, convicted in 2005 at age 16 for a murder he did not commit, based on a flawed process and coerced testimony. After spending nearly 20 years behind bars, he was fully exonerated in 2023 and later awarded a financial settlement for his unjust imprisonment.
• Mahdi Ali, arrested at 15 and sentenced to life in prison under deeply contested circumstances. His case involved junk science, questionable expert testimony, and heavy prosecutorial pressure. He has maintained his innocence for over a decade.

These are not isolated cases. They are part of a broader pattern of over-prosecution, harsh sentencing, and racial targeting—all backed by a corporate sponsor that profited while young Black lives were stolen. And yet, Target has never acknowledged its role. It has not apologized. It has not made amends.

Instead of meeting with the organizers of this boycott, Target has turned to familiar PR tactics: platforming figures like Pastor Jamal Bryant and Rev. Al Sharpton—neither of whom had any involvement in launching the boycott—as the public face of a movement they did not build.

Let us be clear, Pastor Jamal Bryant was fully aware of our boycott from the beginning. He received our press release and expressed interest in joining a coalition effort. But when it became clear that he intended to co-opt, rather than support, he was confronted—and responded with gaslighting and misdirection.

Over a month after our launch, Bryant repackaged our work as his own, created a separate campaign called the “40 Day Target Fast,” and misled the public and the press. He did not amplify our work. He erased it.
This is not a misunderstanding—it is misrepresentation.
And it reflects a long, painful history of Black women organizers being pushed aside, their labor claimed by male leaders seeking visibility or political favor. This is a painful and familiar pattern. Just as Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker, Septima Clark, and Diane Nash were sidelined during the Civil Rights Movement, Black women organizers today continue to face erasure, co-optation, and disrespect—even within our own institutions.

A Call to Conscience

We urge the National Baptist Convention to reconsider its alignment with a corporation that has caused such profound harm.

Target has:

• Rolled back its public commitments to Black communities,
• Funded and enabled the mass incarceration of Black youth,
• Aligned itself with authoritarian politics and the Trump administration,

This $300,000 payment does not heal—it deepens the wound. It appears to be a payout for silence and an attempt to regain Black consumer trust without accountability. Can the moral authority of the Black Church be bought for $300,000?

Who does the National Baptist Convention answer to—God, or corporations that bow to authoritarian leaders?

We are not here to be placated.
We are not here to be silenced.
We are here because justice requires truth. And the truth must be told—by those who carry its weight, not those sent to soften its edge.

The future of our people cannot be brokered behind closed doors. We will not allow it.

We call on the National Baptist Convention to:

• Return the $300,000 payment from Target as a public act of moral leadership.
• Refuse to act as intermediaries for corporations seeking image repair without accountability.
• Reject the corporate erasure of grassroots Black leadership—past and present.
• Demand a full reinstatement of Target’s racial equity commitments.
• Call for an official apology from Target to Black communities harmed by their actions.
• Support the release and full exoneration of those unjustly imprisoned—including Mahdi Ali—whose case reflects the brutal toll of corporate-funded prosecution.

In truth and solidarity,

Nekima Levy Armstrong
Civil Rights Attorney | Founder, Racial Justice Network | Former Minneapolis NAACP President

Monique Cullars-DotyCo-founder, Black Lives Matter Minnesota | National Racial Justice Organizer

Jaylani Hussein
Executive Director, CAIR-Minnesota | Human Rights Advocate

by E.