Star Tribune
The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office is flooding courts with a motion for private police data
The motion for a Brady-Giglio review commonly asks the court to order a law enforcement agency — for example, the Minnesota State Patrol or Minneapolis Police Department Internal Affairs — to share disciplinary information against specific officers.
If the judge grants the motion, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office reviews and catalogues the data and gives any information they view as relevant to the judge overseeing the case. The judge then performs what is known as an “in camera” review of the information to determine if it should be shared with the defense.
In the case of the state troopers, Judge Tamara Garcia denied the motion “for lack of a plausible showing such files would contain material evidence.” She cites the Minnesota Supreme Court opinion in State v. Hummel which stated, “having the trial court review confidential material is not a right. It is a discovery option, but only after certain prerequisites are satisfied.” In other cases, judges have approved the motion and ordered the law enforcement agencies to produce specific disciplinary files for review.
The sheer volume of motions the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office has filed indicates this is becoming standard operating procedure for a department that works with more than 35 law enforcement agencies to prosecute criminals. The reason for that could be related to gray areas in how different agencies categorize public vs. private police data.
The Minneapolis Police Department has a publicly available “police discipline decision dashboard” which dates back more than a decade and tracks various violations and types of discipline. But, as the Star Tribune reported earlier this year, MPD has used coaching — a form of one-on-one mentoring — as their most common approach to dealing with police complaints in the past decade. Coaching documents are not publicly available.
The ability of law enforcement agencies to make disciplinary actions private matters because they can argue that an employee could sue them if they share private data. These legal motions are one way the Attorney’s Office can work around that concern.
Minnesota disaster workers are being deployed to help victims of Hurricane Helene, which has devastated areas of the southeast U.S. from Florida to North Carolina and left around 100 people dead so far.
The American Red Cross Minnesota and Dakotas Region has deployed four emergency response vehicles and over 30 trained disaster volunteers to assist those impacted by the hurricane, with more preparing for dispatch.
The Salvation Army Northern Division has sent workers with experience navigating the emotional trauma of disasters, who will provide emotional care to both victims and other workers.
Here are some organizations and efforts you can donate to if you want to help those affected by Hurricane Helene.
Be cautious when contributing to help after natural disasters. Charitable giving spikes during emergencies, meaning scammers may create fake charities to take advantage of people who want to help, according to the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The driest and warmest September on record comes to an end Monday with another day with highs in the 80s expected and fire danger running high across much of Minnesota.
Red Flag warnings for extreme fire danger are in place across 39 counties in central, northeast, northwest and southwest Minnesota, where the combination of unseasonable warmth, low humidity, high winds and dry vegetation will create “critical” conditions for wildfires, the National Weather Service said.
“Today is not the day to be doing any kind of burning,” the Weather Service said.
Temperatures are forecasted to reach into the 80s for a sixth straight day Monday before a cool front pushes across the state from the northwest, the Weather Service said.
The front will bring gusty winds and drop humidity levels, creating elevated fire potential until evening in places such as Marshall, Morris, St. Cloud, Fergus Falls, Detroit Lakes, Brainerd and Bemidji. A Red flag warning means fires can spread quickly and easily get out of control, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources said.
“When fire risk is this high, it’s important to be careful with anything that could spark a wildfire,” said Karen Harrison, a DNR wildfire prevention specialist.
Monday’s high of 85 degrees in the Twin Cities will make it the 19th day this month the mercury has hit or surpassed the 80-degree mark. With an average daily temperature of 70.3 degrees, this September is now the warmest recorded since weather records began in 1873, the Minnesota Climatology Office said.
That eclipses the previous mark of 69.1 degrees set just last year, the Climatology Office said.
A man was seriously hurt after falling 50 feet down a rock wall over the weekend at the Renaissance Festival south of Shakopee.
The victim, a 24-year-old from Grand Marais, Minn., allegedly went around a fence to climb a wall in the King’s Gate area, then fell and landed in a bus pick up area below, said Scott County Sheriff Luke Hennen.
First responders, who arrived at about 7:20 p.m. on Saturday, found the man alert but suffering serious injuries. The man was airlifted to Hennepin County Medical Center for a head injury and with apparent leg and wrist fractures, Hennen said.
Scott County authorities continue to investigate the incident, but alcohol is believed to have been a factor, Hennen said.
