State Patrol says it destroyed emails and texts during 2020 unrest

In a recent court proceeding, the Minnesota State Patrol acknowledged that it deleted emails and texts after it responded to demonstrations following the police killing of George Floyd in May 2020.

Journalists contend law enforcement injured them as officers and troopers responded with rubber bullets and other nonlethal attempts at crowd control.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Minnesota says its effort to get a court order barring the Minnesota State Patrol from targeting journalists should be strengthened by this development. It currently has a temporary restraining order.

“The court will often — when evidence is destroyed, destroyed in this matter — they will often impute a negative inference saying that it’s likely that there was harmful evidence in the things that were destroyed. And so we’re asking the court to do that here,” said Teresa Nelson, the legal director at ACLU of Minnesota.

“It really is deeply disturbing to us that the State Patrol would do this and purge records that are going to give us a fuller picture of what happened during the George Floyd protests,” Nelson said.

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety issued a statement saying the State Patrol follows all data retention requirements.