Joel Rosenberg on the latest in the Treptow case – the June 7 incident in Coon Rapids where a citizen with a carry permit shot a road-raging driver who (allegedly) pointed a gun at his wife, and later turned out to be an undercover cop:

The only real news, such as it is, is a rumor.  (I think it’s likely true, mind you, but it is rumor, at the moment; I’m working to get a source on deep background or better).  Seems that Officer Friendly [Joel’s pseudonym for the officer] has been kicked off the state Drug Task Force, and is back at Robbinsdale, working as an “investigator.”  He’s not a detective — not that there’s anything wrong with that; the title “patrolman” is an honorable one, and many terrific cops spend their entire career in that rank — but has been assigned as an undercover “investigator” to keep his name and his records from becoming public.  (Under the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act, if a cop is on anything but an undercover assignment, his name, his shift information, disciplinary information, etc., becomes public data.  While he’s on undercover status, it isn’t.)

Interesting.  Hypothetically, if a police chief were to be assigning a cop to an “undercover” role inspecting the break room to see if any of the doughtnuts have escaped, what would be the proper way to fix that? After all, the purpose of the exclusions in the MGDPA aren’t to give political cover from embarrassment to police officials. 

Rumors – all unconfirmed, all exactly that, rumors – indicate the officer might have a bit of a history of being a little boisterous. 

As to his police career, it’s been cooked.  He’ll never testify as a prosecution witness; it would be child’s play for a defense attorney to destroy his credibility on the stand with the events around June 7. 

But this can’t stand.  As one three-decade retired veteran of the MPD recently said, it’s important that bad cops be exposed and disciplined, or the stink rubs off on all. 

 And in a metro area whose crime problems are, in some areas, becoming out of control, maintaining confidence among the citizenry is important.

Meanwhile, from the Anoka County Attorney’s office — the office which will prosecute Officer Friendly for his actions on June 7, if anybody does — what have we heard?

Silence.

That can’t last long.