Police survey shows broad public support

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Many legislators have a professional duty to be mindful of relationships between law enforcement and citizens. Dozens sit on House and Senate committees dedicated to state law on public safety, the state court system or privacy. A handful of members are either current of former officers of the law, and still others work as attorneys, either prosecuting or defending Minnesotans accused of crimes.

Sen. Bobby Joe Champion, DFL-Minneapolis, fits into the latter category and has experience with cops and criminals as a defense attorney. But Champion, a former assistant attorney general first elected to the state House in 2008, can also draw on his appearance as a suspect. More often than others might like to think, Champion said, he is pulled over by police despite no apparent error in his driving.

The most recent instance came about a month ago as Champion was driving in Minneapolis, where he was stopped, questioned and soon released.

“Usually, the first question is just, ‘Where are you going?’ — just asking me why I am someplace,” Champion said. He added: “It doesn’t matter where you are in the state. For people of color, there is a distrust, a strain on the relationship with police. Because nine times out of 10, you are going to be treated differently.”

Champion’s experience flies in the face of new survey results released by the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association, which found an overwhelming majority of Minnesotans feel safe, and have a good relationship with their local police forces. Statewide, a total of 90 percent of Minnesotans either “strongly approve” (59 percent) or “somewhat approve” (31 percent) of the job done by law enforcement in their area, and 74 percent reported “very positive” personal interactions with police.

Dennis Flaherty, executive director of the 8,500-member police organization, explained during a Monday conference call that the group was interested in taking the temperature of the general public after a spate of high-profile incidents, including several involving civilian deaths at the hands of on-duty police officers.

“You couldn’t turn on the nightly news or open up a newspaper without hearing negativity surrounding police officers,” Flaherty said. “Our members throughout the state weren’t feeling it, but they did wonder if these national incidents were having any effect.”

They are, according to the study, but only to a small degree: A total of 19 percent of respondents said events of “violence involving police officers” has affected their perception “a great deal” (5 percent) or “somewhat,” (14 percent), while a 55 percent majority of those polled said the incidents had affected their thinking “not at all.”

Flaherty said the results come as a relief to Minnesota police, who he maintains are among the best-trained peace officers in the country; Minnesota’s requirement of a postsecondary degree coupled with skills training is perhaps the most rigorous standard in the United States. That claim is supported by Rep. Brian Johnson, R-Cambridge, an Isanti County Deputy with more than two decades in police work.

“We’ve probably got the highest training requirements before we can even get hired,” said Johnson, who serves as vice chair on the House Public Safety Finance and Police Committee. “States all across the country come to recruit people in our academies before they even graduate.”

Rep. Dan Schoen, DFL-Cottage Grove, who also serves as a police officer in that community, said he thinks most of the apparent divide between police and citizens comes thanks to a “small percentage of bad actors” that cause most of the problems, both in police forces and in the general public. Schoen said it has become “more and more frustrating” to be a cop, as activists seize on events, local or elsewhere, to score political points in their favor.

“There are folks that are, seemingly, hoping something bad happens, so they can capitalize for their own movement, for their own political gain,” Schoen said. “And that shouldn’t be the case.”

Conversely, Schoen said police forces should not have an instinctual reaction to movements like the “Black Lives Matter,” saying that institutional racism, even of a subtle nature, is still an inherent risk in enforcing the law.

The police survey did include a demographic count of respondents — about 83 percent identified as “white,” or slightly less than the corresponding figure in the 2010 census — but did not include a more detailed breakdown of answers by different racial groups. Flaherty, during the conference call, said people of color were “significantly in support of officers.”

The police job approval rating among minorities was “not quite as high in some communities of color,” Flaherty acknowledged, but “a majority” still expressed support for the performance of local cops.

Sen. Scott Dibble, DFL-Minneapolis, said that gap in perception tells a larger story, and suggested that the survey should have included findings separated by racial groups.

“There’s a daily grind of ill-mannered treatment, and targeting, based on racial assumptions,” Dibble said. “There’s real bias, and discrimination, and disparate outcomes, although some people are just closing their eyes to that reality.”

Dibble, who had not seen the survey, questioned the reasoning behind conducting it at all, and said he would be “extremely interested in knowing the veracity, and the validity” of the results. (To carry out the research, the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers retained Harper Polling, and Pennsylvania-based firm usually retained by conservative candidates and causes.) Dibble said the police organization, and Flaherty, specifically, had repeatedly invoked anecdotal evidence or “really bad data” during the debate over the state’s medical marijuana law, and was concerned how the new polling could be used in future lobbying.

“I would hope that their goal is not to forestall any level of scrutiny, or debate, or accountability,” Dibble said. “They are democratically accountable, and as issues of police misconduct come to light, it’s perfectly fair for elected policymakers to ask questions.”