St. Paul cops to use outside investigators in some officer-involved cases

Updated: 5:35 p.m. | Posted: 11:40 a.m.

The St. Paul Police Department announced Monday it will no longer investigate cases in which its own police are involved in deaths or serious injury.

St. Paul police said that beginning this month it will refer so-called critical cases involving St. Paul officers to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension or the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office.

"Everything is going to play out the way it normally does, except the lead investigator will be the BCA or Hennepin County," said Assistant Chief Bill Martinez. "Transparency has always been there. But the community has asked us to have an outside agency look at it. If by doing that, it builds trust and confidence in our response, that's an added benefit."

When asked what Minneapolis would do, police chief Janee Harteau said her department "will continue to ask the BCA to investigate these cases."

At Minneapolis' request, the BCA was brought in to investigate the November death of Jamar Clark after he was shot by Minneapolis officers.

In the past, St. Paul police's homicide division led the investigations.

The decision comes in the wake of a series of controversial incidents, including the shooting death of Marcus Golden last January and the death of Phillip Quinn in September.

Officers were cleared in the Golden shooting, and the Quinn incident hasn't yet gone to a grand jury.

The St. Paul Police Federation opposes the idea, said Dave Titus, the union's president.

"You know, our members deserve and demand that existing level of professionalism and experience that we have in an investigator in our homicide unit," Titus said. "We can't compromise on that."

Police said the change wasn't in response to any particular incident, and that their discussions over the policy date back nearly a year and involved senior department and police union leaders.

"We gave a lot of thought to this about how to move forward," said Martinez.

The official department announcement said the policy change was an effort to "better align its policies with national best practices and improve transparency."

It made specific reference to the findings of the Presidential Task Force on 21st Century Policing report, released last May in the wake of the riots and protests the followed the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.

Here's how the new policy will work, according to the statement:

Under the updated policy, the chief of police or a designee will contact the BCA or the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office when there is a critical incident. Senior investigators with one of the agencies will then lead the investigation. A representative from Saint Paul Police Department's Homicide Unit will act as a liaison with the lead agency to ensure that their employees have complete access to information and resources needed to complete a thorough investigation.

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman and St. Paul Police Chief Thomas Smith expressed support for the change in the statement.

Rashad Turner, an organizer with the St. Paul chapter of Black Lives Matter, reacted cautiously.

"I think the fact that these outside agencies will be taking over within the first few minutes of the response, I think is a good thing," Turner said. "But at the same time, we still have cops investigating cops. I think there's still a lot of work to be done in terms of gaining the community's trust in that process."

The decision marks a significant change for policing in Minnesota. St. Paul was one of only a few departments that handled officer-involved incidents internally.

The BCA typically investigates about a dozen officer involved shootings every year.