Police Abuse Protected by Federal Immunity

A POLICE OFFICER had a woman jailed for over two years on false charges in connection with a bogus sex-trafficking ring. But the officer, Heather Weyker, cannot be sued, because a court ruled in July that she was acting under color of federal law.

- Billy Binion

For years, Weyker, an officer in St. Paul, Minnesota, gathered evidence, cultivated witnesses, and testified under oath in connection with an interstate sex-trafficking ring run by Somali refugees. She did all that while allegedly fabricating the very ring she was investigating. Her efforts resulted in 30 indictments, nine trials, and exactly zero convictions.

In 2011, Hamdi Mohamud, then just 16 years old, found herself arrested after a woman named Muna Abdulkadir attacked her and her friends at knifepoint. Inconveniently for Mohamud, Abdulkadir was crucial to Weyker’s bogus investigation.

After a call from Abdulkadir—during which she reportedly informed Weyker she had carried out a knife attack and was worried her arrest was imminent—Weyker advised other members of law enforcement that Abdulkadir was a federal witness.

She had information and documentation, Weyker noted, that Mohamud and her friends were out to intimidate Abdulkadir.