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The Minnesota Star Tribune is suing the Minneapolis Police Department again, which tells you less about the newspaper’s appetite for litigation than it does about how reliably City Hall manages to trip over the same open-records law year after year.
Filed in Hennepin County, the lawsuit accuses the Minneapolis Police Department of treating the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act like a polite suggestion instead of what it actually is: the law.
The complaint says MPD has made a habit of slow-walking, stonewalling or flat-out ignoring lawful requests for public records — a familiar routine for anyone who’s ever tried to get a straight answer out of the department before the next snowfall.
This time, the dispute centers on something that should not require a court appearance: the identity of a murder victim. The Star Tribune requested the name of a person killed in a Dec. 2 stabbing in the Kenwood neighborhood. MPD declined to provide it. Follow-ups didn’t help. Neither did patience.
At some point, you stop waiting and you start filing.
“Minnesotans have a clear legal right to timely access to public records,” editor Kathleen Hennessey said, stating what the statute already spells out in black and white.
When agencies decide they’ll get to it whenever they feel like it — or not at all — transparency becomes a buzzword rather than a practice.
The Government Data Practices Act requires prompt and appropriate responses. According to the lawsuit, MPD has repeatedly failed that test, particularly when it comes to releasing the names of homicide victims — information routinely disclosed in most jurisdictions without the drama, delay or legal invoices.
The Star Tribune is asking the court to do what the law already requires: order MPD to release the victim’s identity, follow statutory timelines going forward and cover attorney fees for the trouble of being reminded how public records work.
“This case is not only about one newsroom,” said Emily Peterson, the paper’s general counsel, which is lawyer-speak for: If this keeps happening to us, imagine what happens to everyone else without a legal department.
The Star Tribune says it remains committed to transparency and accountability. Judging by the number of times it has had to drag a city agency into court to obtain basic information, that commitment is being tested far more often than it should be.
Public records aren’t optional. They’re not favors. And they’re not something a police department gets to release once the inconvenience wears off. The law is clear — even if compliance apparently isn’t.
