Minnesota police certification 2022-12-07

To Whom It May Concern:

This is a public records request made via MuckRock under the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act, seeking records related to law enforcement officer certification in this state.

This request is brought by Big Local News along with a collaboration of news organizations, including ABC News, KQED, MuckRock and other news organizations. Big Local News is a program of Stanford University’s Journalism and Democracy Initiative and helps journalists collect, process and analyze public data.

We are seeking two categories of certification records:

* All certified officers
All law enforcement officers who are actively certified as of the date of this request (or when the request is processed). If your system maintains historical records of previously certified officers who are no longer active, please include them as far back as possible. If correctional officers are certified by your agency, please include them as well.

* Decertified officers
All law enforcement officers who have been decertified through revocations, voluntary surrenders, suspensions or any other actions going back as far as possible. Please include records for decertified correctional officers if available.

Data elements for certified officers:
* Officer unique ID number
* POST or state certification ID number
* Officer’s full name
* Officer’s date of birth or, if not releasable, year of birth or current age
* Officer’s city and/or zip code of residence
* Officer’s last/current department or agency
* Officer’s last/current department or agency start date
* Officer’s last/current position and/or rank at that department or agency
* Officer’s previous departments/agencies (employment history), with start and end dates
* Officer’s positions and/or ranks at previous departments or agencies
* Officer’s original date of certification
* Current status of certification (active, lapsed, expired, suspended, etc.)
* Last action taken on certification
* Date of last action on certification
* Disciplinary actions taken against this officer’s certification
* Dates of disciplinary actions taken against this officer’s certification
* Training history/additional certifications of this officer, if available

Data elements for decertified officers:
* Officer unique ID number
* POST ID number
* Officer’s full name
* Officer’s date of birth or, if not releasable, year of birth or current age
* Officer’s city and/or zip code of residence.
* Officer’s last department/agency, with start and end date
* Officer’s last position and/or rank at that department or agency
* Decertification action taken (revocation, suspension, voluntary surrender, etc.)
* Date decertification action taken
* POST case number, if applicable
* Reason for decertification or similar action

If your certification system contains data elements not listed above, please include them in the response, provided they are releasable under the law. On the other hand, we recognize some of the information we are asking for may not be tracked by your system. If that is the case, we are willing to accept as many of the data elements as your agency maintains. If some records are more readily available, we are happy to receive partial information as soon as possible while the remaining request is processed.

In addition to the data elements listed, we request documentation necessary to understand and interpret the data, including but not limited to record layouts, data dictionaries, code sheets, lookup tables, etc.

Our preference is to receive structured data provided in a machine-readable text file, such as delimited or fixed-width formats. We can also handle a variety of other data formats including SQL databases, Excel workbooks and MS Access. If there are additional formats your agency would prefer to provide, please let us know.

We are seeking this information as a news media organization on a matter of public interest concerning the conduct of government. As such, we ask for a waiver of all fees, if allowed under state law. If fees are necessary to reimburse the agency for actual costs, we agree to pay up to $100. If costs exceed that amount, please let us know before fulfilling the request.

Please send clarifications and questions via electronic communication at any time. Thank you very much for your time and attention to this request.

Elisabeth Gawthrop
Data Journalist
American Public Media Research Lab
317-410-7884

Hello,

Thank you for the prompt response. I wanted to follow up because I received some of the requested variables back, but there was no explanation for the variables not included, except to point to the search functionality on your site.

I looked through what’s available via the website, and made a little spreadsheet summarizing what’s available in the dataset vs the website. One thing that seems to be available on the search site but is not in the dataset is a yes/no on whether disciplinary action has been taken against a currently certified officer. When I search via the tool on their site, there is a column for disciplinary action. But this doesn’t appear in the data I received. Would it be possible to get that data point included in the dataset?

Further, can you confirm that none of the additional data requested exists?

Thank you,
Elisabeth

Elisabeth Gawthrop
Data Journalist
American Public Media Research Lab
317-410-7884

Thanks, Erik. I think I’m just confused that there is seemingly no dataset available for the information in the newly engineered public portal. Are you saying it’s not possible to request the dataset that underlies the public lookup tool? Can you provide a legal justification for this? Per my understanding of Minn. Stat. § 13.03, subd. 3(c), if there is a dataset containing public data, I should be able to receive a copy of that public data.

Thanks again
Elisabeth