On December 4, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty announced that her office would not be seeking charges in connection with the death of Khalil Azad. After a traffic encounter with law enforcement in July 2022, Azad’s body was subsequently found in Crystal Lake.
After the announcement of the Hennepin County Attorney’s decision to not seek charges for any officers in this case, the family of Khalil Azad held a press conference asking for the community’s help in finding clearer answers to what happened to their loved one. Khalil’s mother, Fatomeh Azad, spoke at the news conference.
“In addition to the lack of timeline,” Azad said, “not all agencies involved were listed in their actions. The lack of professionalism and the lack of details in the report should concern all of you.”
In the following days after Azad’s body was found, photos began circulating around social media showing his severely disfigured condition. This drew concern from communities all around the Twin Cities following a slate of incidents where African American men lost their lives after police encounters, with official reports leaving more questions than answers for the loved ones of the deceased.
In September 2022, Hennepin County medical examiners ruled Azad’s death as an accidental freshwater drowning. Azad’s family pushed for more information from officials but, even now, feel as though the information they received did not tell the whole story of what happened.
The family of Khalil Azad said autopsy photos showed what appeared to be dog bites on his face, information that was not present in any official reports, and they were skeptical of him drowning as he knew how to swim.
Robbinsdale Police Chief Patrick Foley asked for the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to complete their own independent investigation of the incident and shortly afterward released body camera footage of officers searching for Azad after a traffic stop, to no avail.
Azad’s family responded to the body camera footage by noting that in the footage, there seem to be a lot more officers than what was noted in the official report, leading to further skepticism from the family.
In a statement, the BCA states, “We certainly understand why the family would want to see the investigative case file and will make it available to them as quickly as possible. Now that the county attorney has issued her decision, we can begin our standard case file closure and redaction process, as required by law.”
The family of Khalil Azad plans to continue to fight for information and to see all of the information collected in this case.
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