Minneapolis residents have lived through this scenario many times: A cop or cops get into an altercation with one or more citizens, often in the course of an arrest. A civilian ends up shot to death, seriously injured or roughed up. Alleged victims protest and occasionally take legal action, sometimes resulting in large monetary settlements. City leaders conduct studies and community meetings to assess police-community relations. Reports are written. Goals are set.

Though most Minneapolis cops are good public servants, a small subgroup of bad officers continues to feed public perception of officers as racist, homophobic, disrespectful thumpers. It's a subculture that injures public confidence and makes it hard for good officers to be effective. And it's a problem that's very much on the radar of the city's relatively new mayor and police chief.

Mayor Betsy Hodges and Police Chief Janeé Harteau recently completed a series of three October community meetings to hear citizen concerns about cops. Before the sessions, Harteau was criticized for failing to attend a similar meeting in late September. But it should be noted that the chief had attended more than 30 neighborhood meetings during the previous six weeks.

So what can and should be different this time, and can it make a real difference? Hodges told an editorial writer that she supports Harteau's work to build community trust, negotiate police contract changes to address misconduct, and make it easier for residents and police to file complaints about misconduct without reprisal. She also calls the recent rollout of body cameras for officers a significant game-changer in police-community relations.

Harteau pushed for body cams and agrees that the devices will have a positive impact — both for citizens who are mistreated and for officers who behave properly but are accused of doing otherwise. She is reviewing hiring practices to avoid bringing officers with biased tendencies onto the force. She's also requiring officers to do more preventive work by getting out of their squad cars to get to know people before crimes occur. "We all agree that we don't like what has happened in the past, '' she said. "Now we have to work with the community to change things in the future.''

Recently released research findings show that those changes are direly needed. A year ago, the chief asked the federal Office of Justice Programs (OJP) to conduct an independent assessment of the department's officer oversight and discipline process. The federal researchers found that the most commonly reported types of officer misconduct were lack of respect, unprofessional language or tone, and lack of cultural competence and sensitivity.

In recent draft recommendations, the OJP said the department needs to revamp its "Early Intervention System" to better identify problem officers. The federal office also recommended that the department be more transparent with the public about how complaints are handled.

Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota reported that African-Americans are significantly more likely than whites to be arrested in Minneapolis in connection with low-level crimes such as marijuana possession, loitering and disorderly conduct. Blacks are nearly 12 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession, even though whites and blacks use the drug at similar rates, the study found.

The research also showed that blacks are arrested for disorderly conduct nearly nine times more than whites in Minneapolis. "What might be viewed as a noisy argument between two white people might become disorderly conduct when it's between two black people, " said an ACLU legal director.

That empirical evidence supports the often-emotional stories of mistreatment that citizens told last month during the community meetings.

While offering cops opportunities to improve is important, there is a point with multiple offenders when it's clear that biases or bad behavior can't be "trained'' or "intervened'' away. Harteau says that's when discipline and sometimes termination must come into play. She has shown that she'll take that kind of action. In one high-profile case, she fired two white police officers who had scuffled with a group of black men while off-duty in Green Bay, Wis., and who then had used racial slurs while berating local police investigating the incident.

Harteau and Hodges are sincere about their desires to improve police-community relations. Both acknowledge that problems exist and they are taking specific steps for change. Now citizens must hold them accountable to follow through.