Many Minnesota Police Officers Remain on the Force Despite Misconduct

Employment and arbitration practices nationwide are now under scrutiny after the killing of George Floyd

By Coulter Jones and Louise Radnofsky of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"Minnesota police officers who are fired for misconduct or charged with criminal behavior often end up back on the force.

Law-enforcement officers in the state who appealed terminations since 2014 were reinstated half the time, according to a Wall Street Journal review of records from the Minnesota Bureau of Mediation Services, which maintains a database of arbitration awards.

A Journal review of a different data set found that officers in the Minneapolis police department who faced criminal charges during the past 15 years have been routinely allowed to return to the force, and half of them are working there today.

Those who still have their jobs, according to the data sets, include an officer who punched a handcuffed suspect and a sheriff’s deputy who was drunk and beat his canine partner."

"At least 40 police, sheriff’s deputies or corrections officers in Minnesota have appealed their terminations since 2014, according to arbitration records. Twenty terminations were reduced to a suspension, demotion or no punishment at all.

For cases involving use of force, seven out of nine officers were reinstated, including two officers from the Minneapolis police department."

"Even in places with no statewide collective bargaining rights for police departments, it can be difficult to permanently fire officers. In Atlanta—the center of a new round of protests after a white police officer fatally shot Rayshard Brooks, a black man, in the back—officers and other public city employees can seek remedy before the Civil Service Board."

"A record of misconduct or criminal behavior bodes poorly for an officer’s future policing, said Robert Kane, a Drexel University criminology professor. That misconduct can be contagious, and allowing those officers to stay on the job sends a damaging message about what will be tolerated, he said: “The more that happens, the more the organization itself becomes poorly misbehaved.”"

"Minneapolis Police Department Officer Peter Brazeau was accused of beating a handcuffed, intoxicated man in December 2016 outside a downtown bar, according to records filed as part of his arbitration. The department put Officer Brazeau on limited duty, and an advisory panel ruled that he had violated the department’s use-of-force policy.

He was returned to full duty in December 2017 while the department continued to hold internal hearings. More than two years after the incident, in February 2019, the department fired him for the violation.

In October 2019, an arbitrator agreed that Officer Brazeau violated use-of-force policies, but ruled that the termination was excessive given that the department trusted him to return to work after the incident. A job evaluation after the 2016 incident had said his performance “exceeds expectations.”
Officer Brazeau got his job back."

"Many states, including Minnesota, have a slim list of reasons for formally revoking a police officer’s certification, such as criminal sexual conduct or armed robbery. If officers are fired from one department but don’t lose certification, they can get rehired elsewhere.

Roger Goldman, a Saint Louis University emeritus law professor, said that for many state-licensed professions, the standard for losing a license was far lower than a criminal conviction. “If we have that for professions that are less serious than the ability of a cop to carry a gun and use deadly force and enter your home, you’d think we’d want at least as strong a provision,” he said.

A previous study by the Journal of 3,458 officers nationwide whose arrests made local news between 2005 and 2011 found that 332 were still working as police officers in 2015, often for the same agency. Another 1,927 officers faced no formal barrier to re-entering law enforcement.

The Journal’s recent study of the Minneapolis Police Department used data from Bowling Green State University criminologist Philip Stinson on 23 officers who were arrested between 2005 and 2013, and whose arrests became publicly known.

Eleven of those officers are working as police officers today and have had their licenses renewed following the arrest, according to data held by the Minnesota Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training."