The Minneapolis Police Department has changed how much it shares publicly online when collecting use-of-force records.

Co-founders of a group called the Data / Justice Lab, who have been using that data for independent analysis, told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS they were beginning to establish some reportable patterns before changes complicated that work.

“They’re making it as difficult as possible through the guise, the kind of false guise of transparency,” said co-founder and longtime 3rd Precinct neighbor Sam Gould.

“It’s about transparency. It’s about access,” added co-collaborator and Carleton College Assistant Professor of statistics Claire Kelling.

The pair has spent a couple of years taking MPD’s lengthy list of use of force incidents, which is available for download from an online dashboard, and attempting to put it into context for neighbors.

They’ve mapped out where force incidents are concentrated and highlighted things like, how often the initial “problem” was reported by a 911 caller or by a patrol officer in an effort “to understand where are police being summoned versus where are they patrolling and surveilling,” Kelling said.

“When it is a suspicious person listed as the problem, then many — most of them, definitely, were not initiated by a 911 call,” she added.

That work got flipped on its head when MPD changed how much information they publicly share online about the most recent use of force incidents.

Things like whether force followed a 911 call were wiped away from the newer “Use of Force Dashboard,” which is an online source for information related to use of force incidents from 2021 to the present.

MPD also stopped sharing whether someone resisted the officer and if they were injured.

“That is really missing some key information about the very recent history of policing in Minneapolis,” Kelling said.

“You basically just have kind of a blanket story of police doing their job,” Gould said.

“If we can’t count on the consistency or the reliability of this so-called ‘open government’ transparent data, then we can’t trust it.”

Those details remain available for the use-of-force incidents prior to 2021 on MPD’s “Legacy Police Use of Force Dashboard.”

MPD said these changes hit the newer “Use of Force Dashboard” when the department published a fresh data set for more recent incidents in the fall. MPD’s business analysis manager said the technology tied to the “Legacy Police Use of Force Dashboard” was producing “incorrect data… so we cut it off.”

“It wasn’t reliable,” Chief Brian O’Hara said.

RELATED: Minnesota lawmakers consider change to deadly use-of-force law

O’Hara said updates to the newer site will continue as part of ongoing efforts to comply with court-mandated reforms through a settlement agreement with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights (MDHR). Part of that is a requirement to add back in a list of injuries resulting from force. It also requires “the number and nature of injuries to officers who used force.”

That was in the works as of this report, according to the chief.

“That’s in progress, and hopefully, we’ll have that completed and available online very soon.”

“And kind of just trying to figure out, how can we present that in a way so that, number one, the information is accurate, which I’m not sure has not been the case in the past, at all times, but also in a way, you know, that’s best accessible for people, and so I think that’s that’s generally what’s guiding it.”

MDHR does not expressly require the re-publishing of all of the details recently wiped away on the newer “Use of Force Dashboard” data set, including whether someone resisted the officer and whether a 911 call proceeded the incident.

Asked why that data was removed, the chief responded, “I don’t think there was any intention on anyone’s part to do anything except do what MDHR and the court was addressing us to do.”

“We can absolutely look at making more information available if that’s something that people actually want. But the heaviest lift now is figuring out, how do we get the technology in place to capture all of the things that we need to capture,” he continued.

“But it’s just — it’s not as simple as it sounds… Like, we cannot do what is required under the MDHR agreement with, you know, just the existing technology.”

MPD has not stopped collecting these details when officers use force, the chief said. In fact, he said MPD is working to collect more information related to use-of-force incidents than before, even though they’re currently publishing less of that information.

The public has the right to request copies of that data from the city under the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act (MGDPA), but it can take months to get a response.

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS reached out to the independent monitor tasked with overseeing MPD’s compliance with court-ordered reforms. The president of that organization, Effective Law Enforcement For All (ELEFA), said they were “unable to comment on this issue.”

MPD provided a link where residents can provide feedback on ongoing reform efforts.

Comments can also be emailed to policepolicyfeedback@minneapolismn.gov.