Despite years of denial, Minneapolis police used secretive process for serious misconduct

[WhiskeyGrinder]

https://www.startribune.com/despite-years-of-denial-minneapolis-police-used-secretive-process-for-serious-misconduct/600369519/

Minneapolis police leaders used a secretive process to handle serious officer misconduct cases while keeping the details confidential, despite repeated claims to the contrary.

In public meetings and statements to media, police and city officials long claimed they use coaching, a form of one-on-one mentoring, only in response to the lowest-level policy violations, like uniform infractions or not wearing a seatbelt. But new court documents reveal that some of the misconduct quietly coached in recent years is more severe.

Some of the misconduct included mishandling their weapons (including firing a round into the wall of a precinct), failure to report use of force that injured someone in custody, and letting a police dog off the least, resulting in it attacking a civilian. (That cop got a promotion.)

Because of the coaching, these misconduct records were not public.

Last year, in charging Minneapolis with a pattern of discriminatory policing, the U.S. Department of Justice criticized coaching as part of the city's "fundamentally flawed" accountability system. Only one in four cases referred for coaching through a city oversight office ended up being coached, the charges say, and some allegations were "far from 'low-level,'" including an officer who "smacked, kicked, and used a taser on a teen accused of shoplifting."

The new court filings, made public as part of a government watchdog's lawsuit, offer the fullest window yet into the police department's convoluted coaching process. The records include nine examples of MPD using coaching to handle more serious misconduct than what the city officials have publicly claimed. They also show how city leaders have misrepresented this process in public meetings in the wake of George Floyd's murder, even as they sought to mend fractured trust.

This is what reform looks like. Going in circles.

[LiberalFighter]

1. There needs to be a federal national database

Tracking police misconduct and procedures.
AND federal funds based on it.

[SamKnause]

2. There will be no reforming the cops in the U.S..

The supremes don't want reform.

The Congress does not want reform.

They have given cops over reaching powers and they will not rescind them.