TO SERVE AND DEFLECT

Minnesota Cops Purged Texts, Emails After Floyd Protests

Prosecutors say the Minnesota State Patrol’s file destruction has made it difficult for them to track whether officers used unnecessary and excessive force.

Minnesota’s State Patrol officers deleted their texts and emails after responding to civil unrest in the wake of George Floyd’s murder last summer. State Patrol Maj. Joseph Dwyer said that both he and the “vast majority of the agency” erased communications after the violent protests. The ACLU filed suit against the agency and Minneapolis police on behalf of journalists who claim they were harassed and assaulted by law enforcement while covering the demonstrations. The ACLU said that the level of file destruction “was neither accidental, automated, nor routine.” A state patrol representative said that shredding case files and deleting emails is “standard practice” for troopers after major events. It has left investigators scrambling to piece together an incomplete paper trail in order for the courts to decide whether law enforcement, in responding to the chaos, were guilty of constitutional violations.