Minnesota State Patrol deleted emails, texts after George Floyd protests, testimony reveals

Minnesota State Patrol officers purged emails and texts after protests over the death of George Floyd last year, according to a transcript of court testimony released Friday.

Maj. Joseph Dwyer said he and a "vast majority" of the Minnesota State Patrol deleted the messages during the summer of 2020, according to testimony from a hearing July 28 in an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit alleging the agency used unnecessary and excessive force to target journalists who covered the protests.

Dwyer said supervisors did not order the purge; it is a "standard practice" for patrol members to delete texts and emails periodically or after a major event.

"You just decided, shortly after the George Floyd protests, this would be a good time to clean out my inbox?" ACLU attorney Kevin Riach asked, according to the transcript.

Minnesota law requires the State Patrol to keep records of official activity and allows members to delete messages only under a schedule approved by a state records panel, said Don Gemberling, spokesperson for the nonprofit Minnesota Coalition on Government Information. 

Gemberling said Dwyer’s testimony does not seem to be consistent with the statute "to make sure there's a record of why government does what it does."

"What they’ve done raises a whole lot of questions," he said.

Minnesota Department of Public Safety spokesperson Bruce Gordon told USA TODAY the agency "follows all state and agency data retention requirements." He said he was unable to comment further because of the litigation.

Lawsuit:Police in Minneapolis violated reporters' constitutional rights during protests

In a statement Sunday, the ACLU of Minnesota said, "The purge was neither accidental, automated, nor routine."

The ACLU alleged that no one reviewed the communications before they were deleted to determine whether they were relevant to the lawsuit.

"This destruction of public records makes it nearly impossible to track the State Patrol’s behavior, and the ACLU-MN questions whether that was by design," the statement said.

The testimony is part of a June 2020 class-action lawsuit that alleges the Minneapolis Police Department and the State Patrol violated journalists' constitutional rights by pepper spraying, firing rubber bullets, attacking and wrongfully arresting many who covered the protests last summer. 

Jared Goyette, a freelancer for The Washington Post and The Guardian and lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, said police shot him in the face with less-lethal ballistic ammunition.

Many journalists reported tense interactions with law enforcement during nationwide protests against systemic racism and police brutality, and the lawsuit is one of several filed against law enforcement regarding use of force last summer.

'They do what they want':Minneapolis police injured protesters with rubber bullets. City has taken little action.

The email purge and the State Patrol's failure to investigate "show an alarming lack of accountability for misconduct and complete disrespect for the right to assemble and the right to a free press," Teresa Nelson, ACLU-MN legal director, said in the statement. "It is time for police and our community to stop turning a blind eye to police misconduct, and we hope this lawsuit helps stop this reprehensible behavior."

Minnesota state Rep. Cedrick Frazier called the deletion of the messages "very poor decision making considering the timing."

"At worst, it is the continuation of the type of behavior that breeds distrust," he tweeted Monday.

Minnesota state Rep. Carlos Mariani tweeted Monday that he has "lots of questions for our state patrol."

Contributing: The Associated Press

Contact News Now Reporter Christine Fernando at cfernando@usatoday.com or follow her on Twitter at @christinetfern.