Minneapolis police leaders used a secretive process to handle serious officer misconduct cases while keeping the details confidential, despite repeated claims to the contrary.

In public meetings and statements to media, police and city officials long claimed they use coaching, a form of one-on-one mentoring, only in response to the lowest-level policy violations, like uniform infractions or not wearing a seatbelt. But new court documents reveal that some of the misconduct quietly coached in recent years is more severe.

Last year, in charging Minneapolis with a pattern of discriminatory policing, the U.S. Department of Justice criticized coaching as part of the city's "fundamentally flawed" accountability system. Only one in four cases referred for coaching through a city oversight office ended up being coached, the charges say, and some allegations were "far from 'low-level,'" including an officer who "smacked, kicked, and used a taser on a teen accused of shoplifting."

The new court filings, made public as part of a government watchdog's lawsuit, offer the fullest window yet into the police department's convoluted coaching process. The records include nine examples of MPD using coaching to handle more serious misconduct than what the city officials have publicly claimed. They also show how city leaders have misrepresented this process in public meetings in the wake of George Floyd's murder, even as they sought to mend fractured trust.