By Mara H. Gottfried
Pioneer Press
ST. PAUL, Minn. — The largest association of law enforcement officers in Minnesota sued the state’s licensing board Tuesday night, saying they broke the law and endangered officers and investigations by releasing the names of undercover officers.
The names of 257 undercover officers were included in a public database, though their names have since been removed. The Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association sent an alert to its members Tuesday night, saying the state’s Board of Peace Officers Standards and Training “wrongfully released” the names.
Tony Webster, a local independent journalist who provided public data about Minnesota officers for the website of the Invisible Institute, a nonprofit organization, said he immediately acted to remove the names when he was notified Tuesday. Still, the data had been “distributed to news organizations, and it was downloadable by anyone,” he wrote in a Tuesday statement. “It is likely distributed beyond any assurance of effective recall.”
Webster said the POST Board director notified him Tuesday that he’d “inadvertently sent me data identifying every undercover officer in the state.” Webster waited to say anything publicly until the Minnesota database was updated with a new file provided by the POST Board without the undercover officers’ names.
Erik Misselt , POST Board executive director, said in a Wednesday statement that upon “becoming aware of the issue, the POST Board promptly notified the data requestor and other recipients of the data of the incident and requested the data be destroyed. The POST Board also promptly notified all affected officers and their Chief Law Enforcement Officers of the incident and the POST Board’s steps to stop any further dissemination of the data.”
About 49,000 officers were listed in the response to the data request “and the dataset did not directly reveal or indicate those officers’ statuses as undercover,” the statement continued. “The POST Board recognizes the sensitivity of this issue. POST has been and will continue to work diligently to address and resolve concerns in connection with this incident.”
Lawsuit says board violated state law
In a lawsuit filed late Tuesday, attorneys for the law enforcement association wrote that it’s “critical to these officers’ lives and safety that this information immediately be made private.”
The Minnesota Government Data Practices Act prohibits disclosure of undercover officers’ identities, and the law requires entities including the POST Board to “establish appropriate security safeguards,” said the lawsuit filed in Ramsey County District Court .
“The POST Board itself recognizes that undercover police officers’ identities constitute private data,” the lawsuit continued. “For example, in May 2024 , the POST Board provided a step-by-step guide to chiefs of police regarding how to update internet-based filings to indicate a particular officer is an ‘undercover officer’ and thus ‘private data.’”
Dave Titus , MPPOA deputy director, wrote in a legal filing in the case that “undercover police officers serve in dangerous situations and if it becomes known that they are in fact working undercover, the targets of those investigations could retaliate or cause them harm. The investigations these officers are working on could also be prejudiced or completely undermined by this disclosure.”
The lawsuit alleges the POST Board violated the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act.
Attorneys Chris Madel and Cassandra Merrick , representing MPPOA, requested a temporary restraining order to stop the POST Board from “any further dissemination of data,” to require them to “immediately advise all affected individuals of this disclosure of their personal information” and “to take all reasonable steps to limit the use of the data disclosed.”
A hearing hadn’t been scheduled as of Wednesday afternoon and an attorney for the POST Board wasn’t listed in the court file.
Sen. Warren Limmer , Republican co-chair of the Senate Judiciary and Public Safety Committee , said Wednesday that the breach “demands our greatest scrutiny” and “is a massive failure by the POST Board.”
“Our peace officers already face significant risks, and those working undercover bear even greater dangers,” said Limmer, of Maple Grove , in a statement. “Exposing the identities of these officers jeopardizes hundreds of cases, years of police work, and — most importantly — the lives of the men and women dedicated to protecting our communities.”
Journalist: Public records law not to blame
Webster wrote that he’s “concerned for the officers whose data was wrongfully released by the state. I am also concerned that this incident will be used to attack our public records laws. Our laws are fine. The POST Board broke existing law, the law provides penalties, and I believe they will be held accountable.”
Webster sent the POST Board a public records request for police licensing data in August.
“Other researchers and journalists had tried, but the agency dragged their feet,” he wrote in the statement. “The goal was to investigate the issue of ‘traveling officers’ who move from agency to agency without disciplinary records following them. Historically, these officers are in a group that is more likely to have repeat disciplinary issues go undetected.”
The POST Board “explicitly” told Webster they’d removed undercover officers’ names from the dataset they initially released to him, Webster wrote.
The Invisible Institute maintains a National Police Index, which shows police employment history data. Journalists across the U.S. contributed data to it, and Webster did so in Minnesota .
Webster wrote that he’s not confident about the number provided — that 257 were said to be undercover officers — “because many of the officers they told me today are serving in an undercover capacity are publicly identified on government websites as police officers, and even maintain public LinkedIn pages identifying them as police officers. I believe the POST Board should investigate this more fully to ensure accuracy.”
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