The lawsuit, filed in 2021, stems from a public records request filed by MNCOGI asking for coaching documents, which a city clerk summarily closed without providing any data.

In court motions, the city argues MNCOGI has wrongfully tried to "make this case about police accountability," when the legal argument comes down to a narrow question about whether coaching documents are discipline and public data. The motion says coaching is intended to be "supportive," and not "punitive," and the city has been consistent in its position for many years.

"This case is about whether data on coaching is private personnel data," City Attorney Kristyn Anderson said in a prior statement. "If it is private personnel data, and we believe it is, then the City is not legally permitted under State law to provide public access to it."

MNCOGI has accused the city of using coaching as a rhetorical loophole that keeps records of serious misconduct hidden from the public. The civil suit alleges Minneapolis willfully misinterprets Minnesota public records laws by labeling coaching documents as private data. This practice has promoted a culture of secrecy, allowing MPD to operate without accountability to the people it serves, according to the civil complaint. Attorneys for the all-volunteer public records group say the city has taken "the untenable position that a government's public statements are beyond reproach — and that members of the public are not entitled to see internal documents that contradict those 'official' statements," according to a court motion.

Leita Walker and Isabella Salomão Nascimento, of Ballard Spahr, and the Minnesota chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, are representing MNCOGI. Walker has also represented several local media organizations, including the Star Tribune, in cases related to public records and the First Amendment.

Dozens of hours of deposition transcripts with high-ranking city officials for the lawsuit show how police Minneapolis leaders struggled to define why, exactly, coaching does not qualify as discipline and is not a matter of public record.

When pressed by Walker in separate depositions, former Deputy Chief Amelia Huffman and Assistant Chief Troy Schoenberger couldn't explain the difference between coaching and a verbal warning, even though the latter is classified as public data.

Yet both maintained it was in fact different, somehow.

"You and Ms. Huffman essentially have testified that a warning is different than coaching because the City says it is; isn't that true?" Walker asked Schoenberger earlier this year.

"Yes," concurred Schoenberger.

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