Attorneys for a government watchdog group asked a judge Wednesday to rule that the city of Minneapolis violated state data laws by withholding records of police misconduct, in what's become a protracted civil case exposing how the police department uses a secretive process known as "coaching."

In a Hennepin County courtroom, Leita Walker, lawyer for nonprofit Minnesota Coalition On Government Information, presented Judge Karen Janisch with copies of several internal letters addressed to police officers explicitly referring to coaching as a type of "discipline." One contained the phrase: "As discipline for this incident, you will receive coaching."

The letters, signed by former police chiefs, contradict the city's longstanding position that coaching — a gentle form of one-on-one corrective action — doesn't amount to real "discipline," and therefore isn't a matter of public record, Walker said. She told Janisch the letters are one piece of a "mountain of evidence" demonstrating that the city is being dishonest when it says the police department views coaching as nondisciplinary, which means it doesn't have to disclose the records to the public.

Minneapolis' lawyers asked Janisch to throw out the lawsuit, arguing the Minneapolis Police Department has an established past practice of viewing coaching as a non-punitive "managerial tool" that falls below the threshold of real discipline. City Attorney Sarah Riskin acknowledged that former police chiefs signed those letters, but said they did not write them — and they didn't mean to include language calling coaching "discipline."

"The chiefs did not intend to punish, penalize or discipline," she told the court.

Beyond the legal debate, the lawsuit has opened a window into the city's convoluted process of coaching officers, the most common outcome for police found to have violated department policy. The Star Tribune reported in May that documents released as part of the civil action, including transcripts of under-oath depositions, reveal that top Minneapolis officials have publicly misrepresented how they use coaching.

After the murder of George Floyd, under questioning about transparency in the coaching process, city and police officials said they only use coaching to handle minor policy violations — "called A-category" infractions — like not wearing a seatbelt or a problem in writing a report. But the court documents reveal the MPD has used coaching in response to more serious violations, including excessive force complaints. The city has quietly coached officers for mishandling a gun and firing into the precinct wall, failing to report a colleague's use of force and letting a K-9 off leash, allowing it to attack a civilian, according to court records.

In court and legal motions, the city acknowledges the police department has used coaching for the more serious "B-category" violations in the past, but says it "only happened 13 times" and there were "zero instances" of coaching on more serious infractions, called C-category violations. Walker, however, told Janisch that she's recently discovered records proving that more officers have been coached for serious violations than the city claims.

Records also show the city has coached at least one violation the police department initially classified as C-category. Former Chief Medaria Arradondo signed a March 2021 letter disciplining an unnamed officer for breaking department policy on accessing confidential records – a "sustained" C-category violation – that occurred in 2017. After the police union grieved the discipline, Arradondo agreed to downgrade the misconduct to a B-category and coach the officer, making records of the misconduct private, according to the document.

The Star Tribune asked multiple city officials if this agreement contradicts their statements about never coaching such a serious, C-category violation. City spokesperson Greta Bergstrom, speaking on behalf of the city attorney's office, said this occurred one month after the time period being debated in the lawsuit. She did not respond to a follow-up inquiry on whether the city has continued to coach these higher-level violations.

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