An undercover officer who previously faced death threats is now worried since his name was among those released by Minnesota’s licensing board, according to an amended lawsuit seeking class action status. Another officer reported a “hit” placed for him since his identity was disclosed.

The Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association initially filed the suit last week, after learning the identities of 257 undercover officers had been made public. The association announced the amended legal document on Thursday.

Undercover officers “work on some of the most sensitive, dangerous investigations in law enforcement, and work among the most violent and retaliatory offenders — criminals who do not know that they are in fact law enforcement officers,” the amended lawsuit says. “These investigations include terrorist organizations, drug cartels, sex trafficking rings, illegal firearms transports, and the like. … All of these matters are placed at risk because of the POST Board’s actions.”The lawsuit, filed in Ramsey County District Court on behalf of the affected officers, alleges the state’s Board of Peace Officers Standards and Training violated the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act. The state law says information about undercover officers is private data.

A local independent journalist, Tony Webster, requested public information from the POST Board in August. He said in a statement that the POST Board “explicitly” told him they’d removed undercover officers’ names from the dataset they initially released to him.

The POST Board director notified Webster on Jan. 21 that he’d “inadvertently sent me data identifying every undercover officer in the state,” Webster wrote. He said he waited to make a public comment until a database on the website of the Invisible Institute, a nonprofit organization, was updated to remove the undercover officers’ names.

Erik Misselt, POST Board executive director, said in a statement that upon “becoming aware of the issue, the POST Board promptly notified the data requestor and other recipients of the data of the incident and requested the data be destroyed. The POST Board also promptly notified all affected officers and their Chief Law Enforcement Officers of the incident and the POST Board’s steps to stop any further dissemination of the data.”

About 49,000 officers were listed in the response to the data request “and the dataset did not directly reveal or indicate those officers’ statuses as undercover,” Misselt wrote. “The POST Board recognizes the sensitivity of this issue. POST has been and will continue to work diligently to address and resolve concerns in connection with this incident.”

Additional home security measures, other precautions

Three officers referenced in the lawsuit, but not named because they are undercover, each received a Jan. 21 email from Misselt confirming their names were among those whose identity was disclosed.

The officer who previously dealt with death threats associated with his work is anxious “about the impact this disclosure by the POST Board could have on his family and himself,” the amended lawsuit says. “He has always taken great caution to protect his undercover identity. He has now started to carry his firearm at all times, take different vehicles from his family when they leave the house to protect their safety, and check his home’s security cameras and set his security alarms even more vigilantly.”

“Numerous” other undercover officers “have invested in additional home security measures, including expensive equipment and software, within the last week” since the disclosure came to light, the lawsuit says.

“Others have invested in ‘LEO Web Protect,’ a service that, for $99.99 a year, will attempt to remove any information about law enforcement officers from the internet,” the lawsuit said.

An officer stated the “disclosure by the POST Board ‘is very difficult to digest’ but that he ‘cannot say (he) is surprised,’ and that this incident has caused ‘a lack of sleep and concern for safety,‘” the lawsuit continued. “He explained that as a law enforcement officer, ‘it is not uncommon to have your life threatened by suspects that you interact with,’ but that this release of data by the POST Board is ‘an absolute slap in the face.’”

Seeking class status for suit

The three officers referenced in the lawsuit are seeking more than $50,000, in an amount to be determined at trial. Attorneys are seeking class status for the lawsuit to represent the 257 undercover officers whose names were released.

“We are deeply concerned about the grave consequences of this breach,” said Chris Madel, attorney for the officers, in a Thursday statement. “The identities of these officers were exposed in a colossal violation, endangering not only the officers but also the communities they serve.”

The original dataset on Minnesota officers was posted on the Invisible Institute website on Jan. 15, according to the institute. It was six days later that Webster said he woke to an email from Misselt and then talked to him by phone.

Webster wrote last week that the data had been “distributed to news organizations, and it was downloadable by anyone. … It is likely distributed beyond any assurance of effective recall.”

The lawsuit resulted “in an immediate injunction to prevent any further unauthorized release of data,” the police association said in a Thursday statement. “The amended complaint … now seeks a permanent injunction for the POST Board to adopt stronger measures to ensure future protection of sensitive law enforcement information, including greater oversight and accountability within the Minnesota POST Board.”