Minnesota's top police licensing authority plans to fortify the professional standards for law enforcement officers amid fallout from a Star Tribune series on police misconduct.
In a vote Wednesday morning, the standards committee of the Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) Board recommended adding three misdemeanors to the list of crimes that trigger state review and potential discipline: fifth-degree assault, fourth-degree drunken driving and domestic assault.
The full POST Board is expected to approve the changes in a vote later this month in what would be the first expansion of Minnesota's standards of conduct for police officers in more than two decades. The independent state regulatory body licenses the 10,750 sworn officers on the job today in Minnesota.
Andy Skoogman, head of the Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association, called the changes overdue, and "a really strong step forward."
A community activist at Wednesday morning's meeting, however, characterized them as incremental. Dave Bicking, of Communities United Against Police Brutality, said the three new misdemeanors fall far short of what's needed to address police misconduct on the job. He noted that prosecutors rarely bring criminal charges against officers for behavior on the job. "They are only talking about taking action when an officer is convicted of a crime," Bicking said after the meeting.
Bicking's group is particularly critical of the circular way the POST Board handles complaints filed by citizens, which it routinely forwards to the law enforcement agency that employs the officer in question. His group has protested the POST Board's lack of action in the past.
The head of Minnesota's largest association of rank-and-file officers told the committee that his group does not support the changes, but will not oppose them.
Dave Metusalem, executive director of the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association, said in an interview that he sees no need for the state to intervene in local employment matters.