All eyes were on the release this afternoon of the Heffelfinger-Luger report on law enforcement during the Republican National Convention that was commissioned by the City of St. Paul, where most of the RNC events, protests and policing took place. But at least three studies from outside of St. Paul are pending as well: an internal report by the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD), an outside review by a national police organization by invitation of the MPD, and a winter term research project by a team of students from Ohio’s Oberlin College.

The MPD’s internal review will mostly remain confidential, although the department is prepared to release a version of it to the public after St. Paul’s study goes public today. According to MPD spokesman Sgt. William J. Palmer:

We have completed an After Action Report, which is an internal document that reviews our methods and actions during the RNC. That is a non-public document because it will be used to plan future events and release would compromise tactical operations. There is a summary of the after action report which will be public. That document will be released once we receive a copy of the St. Paul reports. Because we participated in the St. Paul process as our agencies’ planning and operations were intertwined, we will use the relevant sections of that report to address the items of joint concern. Our report will also address those items relevant specifically to Minneapolis. We do not yet have a date that the summary will be available.

The Oberlin College project involves seven first- and second-year students (two from the Twin Cities) who will spend two weeks here this month interviewing as many as 20 people from a variety of backgrounds who were involved in, as researcher Samantha Link puts it, “the RNC scandal”:

We’ll be videotaping interviews (hopefully to compile into a mini-documentary at the end) with activists/protest organizers, journalists who got caught up in police actions, ACLU lawyers and official RNC organizers and police, if they will talk to us. Surveying the information available on the issue, it seems most of “the facts” are out there, but the people we are talking to still seem to have a story to tell. We want to focus on the human impact of the RNC conflict and any changes it created in citizens’ relationships to their government and their civil rights.

An Edina native, Link says the RNC shook her impression of home as a “generally tolerant place adhering to a live-and-let-live, ‘Minnesota Nice’ state of mind.”

A very different group from out of state is conducting another study based on interviews here this month. The Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) describes itself as “a national membership organization of progressive police executives from the largest city, county and state law enforcement agencies … dedicated to improving policing and advancing professionalism through research and involvement in public policy debate.”

PERF’s topic of inquiry is more narrowly focused on communications and media relations during what are known as National Special Security Events (NSSEs) — huge gatherings like the RNC, the presidential inauguration, and even certain Super Bowls at which the U.S. Secret Service takes charge of all law enforcement.

I was among the media workers interviewed last week by PERF Executive Director Chuck Wexler and Homeland Security Development Director Gerard Murphy, in a high-ceilinged meeting room in the office suite of MPD Chief Tim Dolan, who Murphy said had invited PERF to do the study. Wexler and Murphy asked about how journalists identified themselves to police and plans made by media and police before the RNC. Wexler asked whether I would be willing to wear special vests that would mark me as media. Their interest in what happened during the RNC and what could be done to make future NSSEs better seemed genuine.

Look for updates on these three studies as they are completed or I learn more about them.