Minnesota State Patrol Deletes Emails

In a lawsuit filed by the Minnesota chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), it is alleged that the Minnesota State Patrol deleted a substantial number of emails in the time after the response to the George Floyd protests.

The ACLU is trying to find out if the police used any improper force was used. They say that this practice of deleting such a number of emails is not a common practice among the State Patrol and also that it was not an accident, nor was it some automated mistake.

The ACLU is trying to figure out whether or not what the State Patrol did could be considered tampering with evidence, and even if not considered, why would they delete so many emails. Are they hiding something? If so, what?

I always wonder why if one officer or a few officers did something wrong, their fellow officers would not call them out. If one of the journalists I know wrote an article that I knew was wrong, I would not go and support that article. Instead, I would point out where it is wrong and clarify that this is not a standard practice in my field.