If you were curious to find out when someone began working for, say, the Minneapolis Police Department, there's now a way to look up their employment history.
Take Bob Kroll, the former president of the police union who once called Black Lives Matter a "terrorist organization" and is currently seeking President-elect Donald Trump's nomination to be Minnesota's next U.S. marshal.
His first day on the force was Feb. 9, 1989. His last? Jan. 29, 2021.
That information comes courtesy of a new dashboard that tracks the employment history of police officers who've worked for law enforcement agencies in Minnesota. The state's Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) provides the data. The Invisible Institute, a nonprofit journalism outfit based in Chicago, compiles it.
The organization had help from Tony Webster, a local independent journalist who successfully sued the Minnesota Secretary of State's Office for business registration records.
“As much as I believe that journalists should be empowered to access data freely, so should the public,” Webster said. “And that is all the more important when news organizations are shutting down and journalists are getting laid off.”
Reporter Susan Du has the full story about how the dashboard came together at the link below.
