By Tim Nelson, Minnesota Public Radio News

Minnesota’s police officer licensing agency on Thursday voted to toughen standards for cops who commit crimes, setting in motion a potentially yearlong rule-making process.

The 15-member Minnesota Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training adopted recommendations from its standards committee to pursue changes that would add domestic assault, fifth-degree assault and fourth-degree drunk driving to convictions that could bring a board hearing and potential action against officers state license.

State law already has automatic revocation for felonies and theft charges. Misdemeanor assault convictions already bar people from becoming cops, and the new action would apply to current license holders, said Nathan Gove, executive director of the POST board.

“Keep in mind that they are disciplined not only by the courts, from the criminal justice perspective, but from their agency,” Gove said. “Some agencies will terminate an officer. Certainly any promotional opportunities can be lost when something like that happens, and the department is embarrassed. So there are a number of avenues that officers are held accountable.”

Critics at the meeting said the new rule changes are cosmetic since they rarely apply to on-duty behavior that has a direct impact on the public. The rule changes could yet be subject to a contested administrative hearing.

State law already requires police license revocation for felony convictions.

Dave Bicking, a police critic from Minneapolis, dismissed the licensing board’s action as “essentially window dressing that will have no practical effect whatsoever, and I’m sure it’s not intended to.”

Board members have wide discretion in their decisions, and “their discretion is always used to just let the officer off the hook,” he said following the meeting. “These three new standards may mean that a couple more cases come before the POST board, but it will result in no additional action against any officers whatsoever … not unless there’s a tremendous change in how the board operates.”

Paul Schnell, chief of the Inver Grove Heights police, said that while police departments remain primarily responsible for policing their own officers, the board’s proposed penalty changes send a message.

“Certainly, I think that’s one of the hopes, that we will see officers being more mindful,” Schnell said. “Certainly, agencies will be aware that there’s that other layer of a look that the POST board would ultimately do once this passes through rulemaking. But I do ultimately believe that these are important reform steps.”