That night, I began wondering what happened when the people enforcing those rules decided they didn't apply to themselves.
At seventeen, I entered college intending to study law.
I changed direction after taking a course on public administration and criminal justice oversight. The professor was a retired investigator who had spent years reviewing misconduct complaints in municipal agencies.
He presented a simple question during our first lecture.
"What is the difference between having a complaint procedure and having a complaint procedure that works?"
Most of us answered with references to written policies, disciplinary hearings, and investigative authority.
He listened.
Then asked another question.
"What happens when the person accused of misconduct controls the information needed to prove the complaint?"
Nobody answered immediately.
The professor smiled sadly.
"That's where your education begins."
I became fascinated with the question.
I studied how complaints were received, classified, investigated, reviewed, and resolved. I learned that even well-written policies could fail when employees feared retaliation, supervisors discouraged reporting, evidence wasn't preserved, or investigators lacked the authority to challenge their own departments.
I also learned that meaningful accountability didn't require assuming every officer was corrupt.
It required creating systems capable of distinguishing honest mistakes, poor training, serious misconduct, and deliberate abuses of power.
That distinction mattered to me.
My uncle had been a police officer for eighteen years. He was proud of his work and had helped families during some of the worst moments of their lives. I respected him.
But I also knew that respect for good officers meant little if an agency allowed dangerous behavior to hide behind their reputation.
After graduation, I worked in civilian oversight research, then entered a law enforcement agency's professional standards unit through a competitive investigative appointment. I later completed additional training in evidence handling, administrative investigations, employment law, and the legal standards governing police authority.
Over the next several years, I examined hundreds of complaints.
Some were unfounded.
Others resulted from misunderstandings that could be corrected through clearer communication or training.
A smaller number revealed genuine misconduct.
And some exposed something more difficult than one officer making one bad decision.
They revealed organizations that had quietly developed methods of avoiding uncomfortable truths.
By twenty-nine, I had become known as an investigator who did not particularly care whether the person sitting across from me was a patrol officer, lieutenant, union representative, or department executive.
I cared about what the evidence showed.
That reputation brought me to Carver County.
The county was changing quickly.