In six months prior to fatal shooting, Polk County Attorney and police officer exchanged numerous emails

Apr. 19—POLK COUNTY, Minn. — In the six months prior to fatally shooting Lucas Gilbertson during an attempted apprehension, an East Grand Forks police officer exchanged at least 64 emails — 20 directly and the remainder including other parties — with the county attorney who would later clear him of any wrongdoing.

Although the correspondence was related to law enforcement work, a representative from a statewide watchdog group finds the volume of back-and-forth communication troubling. She believes that if there is a close working relationship between the two, it could have impaired Polk County Attorney Greg Widseth’s ability to remain impartial.

“To me, this is a very troubling case,” Michelle Gross, co-founder and president of Communities United Against Police Brutality, told the Grand Forks Herald. “This prosecutor is way too close to this officer — to the people involved in this — to make an objective judgment.”

Sgt. Aeisso Schrage

shot 42-year-old Gilbertson

during an attempted arrest for alleged bond violations last year. When the Pine to Prairie Task Force received a tip that Gilbertson was at his mother’s house in Rhinehart Township outside East Grand Forks, its officers attempted to apprehend him there on Jan. 9, 2024. According to Schrage’s statement to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, while Schrage and another officer were in the house, Gilbertson ran at them and Schrage responded with gunfire. Gilbertson sustained three gunshot wounds and died later that day. Because both Schrage and the other officer inside the residence at the time of the shooting were undercover, they were not equipped with body cameras.

Widseth released a statement in September saying that, upon review of the Minnesota BCA’s investigative file, he found no basis to file criminal charges against Schrage.

After

the Herald reported on Widseth’s findings,

a reader reached out to say the county attorney appeared to have a close working relationship with Schrage, if not also a personal relationship. The Herald confirmed the two men were social-media friends, and ultimately compiled a records request in hopes of clarifying the extent of their relationship.

According to the Minnesota County Attorneys Association, there is no statewide policy to determine when the review of a deadly force investigation should be transferred to another county due to conflict of interest; each county makes that decision on its own. Widseth said Polk County has no written policy on the matter.

“It is really a case-by-case evaluation and depends upon the facts of a case,” he said in an email.

Gross said she finds this to be “appalling.”

“You should have a written policy for every kind of circumstance like this,” she said. “I mean, there’s not a way to know about every single thing that can happen, but this is a general, broad category.”

But Alicia Granse, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, said she’s not surprised by the lack of written policy. She and Gross agree that prosecutors have broad, largely unchecked discretion. Granse said she believes there’s a lack of oversight statewide that can be harmful in situations such as this one.

“I wish that the County Attorneys Association had such a policy that would govern when you had to (recuse yourself), but I think it’s also kind of common sense for the prosecutor in this case to recognize that there might be a conflict here,” she said.

Granse believes there is a lack of transparency in how these decisions are made that does a disservice to everybody involved, as well as to the people of Minnesota.

In a Jan. 20 records request, the Herald asked for all written correspondence between Widseth and Schrage throughout the six-month period leading up to the shooting, as well as all written correspondence sent to or from Widseth related to his involvement in reviewing the BCA’s investigation.

At the time of the request, Widseth explained that the IT department would be compiling the emails between him and Schrage, while he would personally look through his emails to find any records related to the second request, as there was no easy way to search for them. He also said that he, as the county attorney, would have to personally review all records to determine what is public, and make any necessary redactions or removals he deemed necessary before releasing them.

The Herald received 64 emails as part of the first half of its records request. Of them, 20 were emails sent directly between Widseth and Schrage (two being out-of-office auto-replies), 16 were direct messages with other parties included, 11 were sent by either Widseth or Schrage to the “P2P Group” (likely referring to the Pine to Prairie Drug Task Force board) and 17 were sent to the “Attorney Department.”

Pine to Prairie Task Force members, including Schrage, attempted to arrest Gilbertson at his mother’s home,

according to a press release

issued by the Polk County Sheriff’s Office days after the shooting occurred. The task force is a Violent Crime Enforcement Team (VCET) covering eight counties throughout northwest Minnesota;

its members often work on developing informants and cases surrounding illicit drug sales.

Widseth is an advisory member of the PTPTF board, which means he can attend meetings but cannot vote.

All of the topics included in the emails sent directly between Widseth and Schrage were related to their work. There were inquiries about criminal cases, plans to meet to discuss a case, questions about an upcoming grant application and similar matters.

The other emails largely included notices about training and other events, as well as updates on certain law enforcement requirements.

The second half of the request, which asked for any correspondence that references Widseth’s involvement in reviewing the BCA’s investigation, primarily yielded inquiries from the media. The exceptions are a couple of emails from a concerned community member, an exchange from an attorney asking if Widseth had Schrage’s statement to the BCA and could provide it (which he said he did not have), an exchange with the BCA discussing who will let Gilbertson’s family know about Widseth’s decision prior to releasing it to the public, and exchanges where Widseth provides his September statement to media, as well as other people, such as the East Grand Forks police chief.

The Herald received no emails between Schrage and Widseth that were personal in nature. If any exist, they would have been exempt from open-records laws, regardless of their presence on a professional account or device, according to Mark Anfinson, an attorney who works closely with the Minnesota Newspaper Association.

Widseth did say some records were protected from release to the public. He provided a letter that cited the relevant statutes that excluded records from both requests, though it does not state how many records were withheld or any more information about their contents.

For the first request, Widseth cited statutes that protect information used in an active criminal investigation, references to informants who might be put in danger if their identity is released, non-public security data and protected attorney work product.

The sole statute cited for the second request was the one regarding attorney work product —

Minnesota Statue 13.393.

Anfinson characterizes this statute as the most confusing of all he has dealt with under the Data Practices Act.

“I think the easiest explanation is that it’s a statute that applies most of the principles of the attorney-client privilege to government attorneys and records they create or collect working for the government,” Anfinson said. “But you read this, and you could conclude that everything the county attorney, for example, does — generates, collects, holds and files — is not covered by the public access rules of the Data Practices Act, and that’s not its intent, but it’s just not clear at all.”

After receiving the records in late February, the Herald made several attempts to discuss their contents with Widseth. Without his perspective, it’s not clear how he personally interpreted the statutes, and which records he believed were exempt from release as a result.

Prosecutors sit in a unique space because they are part of the court system, which is covered by much more restrictive data release practices, Gross said. As with police, there are many ways information can be excluded; active investigations are regularly cited as the reason. Gross believes these practices can allow law enforcement to control what information the public receives.

“When they control the data, they control the narrative,” she said. “So they can say whatever they want to say about what happened, and then you find out later — only sometimes years later — that what they said was completely wrong.”

Granse believes that because the queries were rooted in concerns of constituents — who reached out to the Herald — questions about transparency are amplified.

“He is an elected official, and if people in his community are asking for an explanation, I think it’s important for him to answer those questions,” Granse said. “(But) he doesn’t have to. As far as I know, there isn’t any sort of a law that dictates when (he does and) doesn’t have to respond.”

She reminds the public, though, that they always have the right to ask questions and voice their concerns.

The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office declined to weigh in on Widseth’s decision not to pass the review of the shooting investigation to another agency.

“I don’t believe we are able to provide an interview here,” Brian Evans, the office’s press secretary, answered. “As a matter of policy, the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office does not provide legal advice or analysis to members of the media. We would not want to say something appears lawful or not to be lawful based on the facts available, only to have that contradicted by private information. I recommend contacting the Minnesota County Attorney’s Association. I believe they could assist with this request.”

MCAA Executive Director Robert Small said the association does not comment on decisions made by its county attorneys.