Some Foresee Limitations on Police Departments During Shutdown

During his petition for additional funding on Tuesday, League of Minnesota Cities attorney Tom Grundhoefer presented arguments suggesting that shutdown-related limitations on Minnesota police departments are putting public safety at risk.

Shutting down Minnesota’s Peace Officer Standards and Training licensing board has made it impossible to recruit, hire or train new public safety officers, Grundhoefer said. In cases where officers move on from a police department, it's impossible to replace them during a government shutdown.

"The hiring process [for police officers] is lengthy," City of Hutchinson Police Chief Daniel Hatten said. "Once we reach the point where an officer can be hired and training can begin, we still have three to four months before that officer can become a functioning member of the public safety department. Every day we kick the can down the road prolongs this scenario.”

In Apple Valley, there are no plans to hire additional officers at this time, Apple Valley Police Chief Scott Johnson said in an email.

With the government shutdown in place, vehicle license databases also are not being updated, said Minneapolis-based attorney Kurt Glaser.

This means the databases that help officers determine the category and number of vehicle-related offenses are erroneous at best and incomplete at worst since the government shutdown began.

“Police officers may start to err on the side of not taking offenders into custody because drivers know they’ll get a pass,” Glaser told Special Master Kathleen Blatz.

David Lillehaug, special counsel for Gov. Mark Dayton, echoed the sentiments of most people in the room.

"This sounds like a serious problem," he said. "It needs to be dealt with immediately."

Johnson said in the email that he was not told on a local level that the state would not be updating vehicle license transfers or new owners in its databases.

He said the officers in the Apple Valley Police Department continue to run checks on motor vehicle registrations, driver’s licenses, warrants and criminal histories, and that the shutdown is not impacting the ability to enter stolen property, stolen vehicles and missing persons into the National Crime Information Center computers.