The case drew outrage because of the video. The prison sentence matters because federal jurors found the officer crossed from force into a constitutional crime.
A former St. Paul police officer is going to federal prison after a violent arrest that began with a mistaken report about an armed suspect and ended with an innocent man badly injured.
Brett Palkowitsch was sentenced to 72 months behind bars, followed by three years of supervised release, in a case that turned a police use-of-force incident into a federal civil rights conviction.
The sentence behind the outrage
According to CBS Minnesota, the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota announced the six-year sentence in connection with a June 24, 2016 encounter involving Frank Baker, an unarmed Black man who was 52 at the time.
Prosecutors said Palkowitsch kicked Baker in the abdomen while a police dog was biting him. Baker had been mistaken for a man reportedly involved in a fight and believed to have a gun.
The punishment was not just an internal discipline decision or a civil settlement. A federal jury convicted Palkowitsch in 2019 after finding that, while acting under color of law, he willfully deprived Baker of his constitutional right to be free from unreasonable seizure and unreasonable force.
That distinction is crucial. The court was not merely reviewing whether the arrest looked bad on video. It was deciding whether an officer’s conduct crossed the line into a federal crime.
A mistaken suspect was mauled
The encounter began after St. Paul police responded to reports of a large fight on 7th Street, CBS Minnesota reported. Officers were told a man involved had a gun, and the description they received led them to Baker.
But Baker was unarmed. He was also not the armed suspect police were seeking, according to the reporting and statements tied to the case.
Video released by the St. Paul Police Department showed a police dog taking Baker down. Prosecutors said Palkowitsch then kicked him while the dog was attacking him, causing serious injuries.
Baker’s injuries were severe. CBS Minnesota reported that prosecutors said the kicks fractured his ribs and punctured a lung. Baker’s attorney said he spent 13 days in the hospital, suffered a collapsed lung and broken ribs, and underwent multiple surgeries for tissue loss from the dog bites.
Why the conviction was unusual
Police officers are often sued after violent arrests. Criminal convictions are much harder to obtain, especially in federal civil rights cases.
To win this kind of case, prosecutors generally must prove more than bad judgment, poor tactics or a split-second mistake. They must show the officer willfully used his authority to deprive someone of a constitutional right.
That is why the phrase under color of law matters. It means the officer was using the power of the badge, not acting as a private person. The jury found Palkowitsch abused that power when he used excessive force against Baker.
The case also stands out because Baker was already being controlled by a K-9 when the kicks occurred. For courts and juries, the level of threat a person poses at the moment force is used often becomes the central question.
The video changed the pressure
After the incident, then-St. Paul Police Chief Todd Axtell released squad video and said he was doing so in the interest of transparency.
“I’m releasing the video because it’s the right thing to do,” Axtell said at the time, according to CBS Minnesota. “Our community has a right to know what’s happening in their police department.”
That decision mattered because video can shift a police case from an internal narrative to a public test of accountability. It allows residents, prosecutors and jurors to see the timing of force, the behavior of the suspect and the actions of officers in sequence.
Axtell also said the department learned from the incident and made changes, including more training and retooled de-escalation skills for situations involving K-9 units.
K-9 force faces hard questions
Police dogs are trained to help locate and subdue suspects, but K-9 deployments can produce catastrophic injuries quickly. Once a dog bites and holds, a person may be in extreme pain and less able to follow commands, even if officers believe they are resisting.
That makes additional force especially fraught. If a suspect is already pinned, bitten or surrounded, prosecutors and civil rights attorneys often ask whether punches, kicks or strikes were necessary at all.
In Baker’s case, the government’s position was that Palkowitsch’s kicks were excessive. The jury agreed, and the prison sentence made the consequences concrete.
The case also shows how mistaken identity can multiply the damage. A call about a gun, a description, a fast response and a K-9 takedown all converged on a man who was not armed.
The takeaway from the case
The six-year sentence does not undo Baker’s injuries. It does, however, mark a rare moment when an officer’s use of force led to federal prison time rather than only department discipline or a civil payout.
For police departments, the case is a warning about K-9 tactics, escalation and the danger of treating a mistaken suspect as a confirmed threat. For the public, it is a reminder that the key legal question is not whether an arrest looked chaotic, but whether force remained reasonable once officers had control.
The public attention around the case has often focused on the most disturbing details of the encounter and the officer’s demeanor. The courtroom result points to the larger issue: an innocent man was badly hurt, and a federal jury found the officer violated the Constitution while wearing the badge.
That is why the sentence still resonates. It is not only a punishment for one former officer. It is a signal about where courts may draw the line when police power is used against someone who should never have been treated as the target in the first place.
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