The ACAB case for public police records

What do you have to hide?

Listen, my babies. We’ve reached the fifth installment of the ACAB case for weaksauce police reform series. Part one laid out why we need to professionalize policing. Part two made the case for hiring more officers. Post three suggested that proactive policing needs to go. Our last post introduced community policing as a good alternative.

I had originally hoped this would be the last in the series. At least for now. Eleven pages of notes for this post alone later… I’m thinking that’s not going to be possible.

Today’s post is the first in a sub-series covering the long-overdue conversation about police accountability.

“When you give someone a badge and a gun, that’s going to create its own issues, and there’s no question that those issues can be addressed with greater accountability,” Jon Stewart said. “You can value and admire the contribution and sacrifice that it takes to be a law-enforcement officer in this country and yet still feel that there should be standards and accountability.”

“Civilian oversight of any law enforcement agency is an integral component of democracy and the proper administration of justice,” writes the LA Times Editorial Board.

“It remains notoriously difficult in the United States to hold officers accountable,” according to the New York Times. Investigators and prosecutors are reluctant to question officers’ decisions. Acceptable use-of-force policies sanction myriad dangerous activities. For example, San Francisco Police Department officers are allowed to shoot into the back of a vehicle driving away from an officer. Police departments resist changes to disciplinary practices. And department heads have a very hard time punishing or firing bad cops. And behind every one of these factors lies police union clout.

As law enforcement officers have the power of life and death in their hands, there’s no aspect of government the citizenry should be more interested in understanding. And yet law enforcement agencies are notoriously opaque. Without transparency and accountability, communities can not, and should not, trust law enforcement.

Step one towards accountability is transparency. And toward that end, we need to begin to publish officers’ disciplinary records and complaints.

First off, let me just say that the entire idea of “disciplining” a grown-ass adult for how they perform at their job is completely bonkers. There are really just three ways an employer should respond to an employee: Promotions and raises, a performance improvement plan, or a firing. Where, exactly, do spankings come into play here? Why are we putting adult humans into time out at their professional jobs?

Be all that as it may, the way departments handle officers’ disciplinary and complaint records is, as you may have guessed, abysmal.

First, we need to look at state law. In half of states, departments are allowed by law to shield officers’ identities and disciplinary records from public view, even when media submit public records requests. Even where laws don’t allow this, departments often hide these records using ambiguous legal precedents. Which, of course, yields years or decades of preventable abuse and wrongful convictions.

For example, let’s look at Jon Burge, a former Chicago detective and area commander. Burge and colleagues beat numerous confessions out of 118 Chicagoans, most of whom were Black. Their interrogations incorporated suffocations, mock gunpoint executions, and sexual assaults. They also shocked suspects’ genitals, gums, fingers, and earlobes.

These tactics led to so many wrongful convictions that the City of Chicago has paid out nearly $60 million to survivors of Burge alone.

Exemptions in Illinois’s Freedom of Information Act means disciplinary records for some members of “Burge’s Ass Kickers” are still unavailable to the public.

Or we could look at Kansas City, where former detective Roger Golubski’s records are also sealed. For decades, Golubski would regularly plant drugs on suspects and then rape them. He also helped Lamonte McIntyre spend a quarter century behind bars for a double murder he didn’t commit. We still don’t know the full extent of his misconduct.

We can also look at the NYPD, where in 2019 an officer grabbed a man from behind, lifted him up and slammed him into the pavement. The victim was hospitalized for six days with a brain bleed, three broken bones, and other injuries. The 20-year-old man was suspected of carrying cannabis. Seven body cams filmed this incident. But when reviewers asked to see the videos, the department simply refused, despite the fact that they’re required by law to cooperate.

“This just seems like contempt,” Shira Scheindlin told ProPublica. She’s the now-retired federal judge who ordered that NYPD officers use body cams. “They’re refusing to meet their obligations.”

Perhaps you’ve heard of Derek Chauvin, who killed George Floyd over a supposedly counterfeit $20 bill. At the time of the incident, citizens had filed 18 complaints against Chauvin. Due in part to its long history of abuse accusations, a federal review had recommended MPD improve their flagging of problematic officers. But these complaints not only failed to derail Chauvin’s career, but he was actually training new officers when he killed Floyd.

No one can hold officers accountable for their behavior when departments keep behavior behind lock and key. There is absolutely no compelling reason not to make officers’ disciplinary and complaint records public information.