Duluth, MN

The Duluth Police Department has paid $925,000 in documented civil settlements between 2010 and 2024 - a figure that, while modest in absolute terms, represents the most concentrated settlement pattern in the PoliceRiskIndex national index. Every dollar of tracked exposure in Duluth is attributed to a named officer in official court records, producing a 100% concentration index that no other jurisdiction in the dataset matches.

The largest settlement in the Duluth dataset is Fyle v. City of Duluth, in which Officer Tyler Leibfried shot a man through a closed door during a mental health call in 2023. The city paid $600,000 to settle the case in June 2024. Leibfried was subsequently acquitted of criminal charges in a jury trial - a pattern common in officer-involved shooting cases where civil liability and criminal culpability are assessed under different legal standards. Following the settlement, Leibfried was placed on paid administrative leave amid a new investigation, making him the highest-exposure officer in the Duluth dataset with a single case accounting for 64.9% of total tracked exposure.

A second named officer, Adam Huot, was involved in a $90,000 excessive force settlement in 2024 (Houle v. City of Duluth). The 2010 Croud Family wrongful death settlement ($100,000) and a 2024 racial discrimination case ($135,000, Kirk v. City of Duluth) complete the documented record. The Kirk case is notable for its claim type - racial discrimination in policing - which differs from the excessive force pattern that dominates most other cities in the national index.

Duluth is classified as a Non–Consent Decree Dataset in the PoliceRiskIndex system. The department operates under no federal oversight agreement, making it a baseline comparison jurisdiction alongside Indianapolis and Colorado Springs. The Minnesota Data Practices Act, one of the strongest public records laws in the country, provides full access to settlement records and officer disciplinary data without a formal FOIA process.

For insurance underwriters, Duluth's dataset demonstrates that the concentration pattern documented in large consent decree cities - where a small number of officers account for a disproportionate share of settlement costs - is observable even in departments of fewer than 200 officers. The Leibfried case, in which a single officer's single incident generated 64.9% of the department's 14-year settlement total, is a textbook example of the tail-risk concentration signal that actuarial models are designed to identify.