For well over a decade, the federal government has been telling local police departments to release the names of officers involved in shootings, saying that doing so increases transparency, builds legitimacy and dispels misinformation.
But the Department of Homeland Security is not taking that advice. It has declined to release the names of officers involved in high-profile killings, most recently this month in Maine and Texas, leaving officials and residents clamoring for information.
The secrecy applies even when it comes to sharing information with other law enforcement agencies. Last week, officials in St. Paul, Minn., sued the department after what they said were repeated attempts to get the names of immigration officers and other details of an episode in which a U.S. citizen was taken from his residence half-naked in subfreezing weather.
The department said Friday that identifying officers would expose them and their families to serious danger from violent agitators. It would not identify the person who sent the statement.
Local police officers have indeed been harassed, had false liens placed on property, had credit cards taken out in their names and endured death threats. But physical harm to officers named after fatal encounters is rare.
Policies on identifying police officers after violence vary across agencies and states. At least six of the nation’s 10 biggest police departments — in New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Las Vegas, Dallas and Philadelphia — routinely release names within days or weeks.
In Washington, D.C., the mayor’s office releases the names of all city officers involved in fatal or serious incidents. After President Trump ordered a surge of federal law enforcement officers and troops in the city last year, the District Council expanded that to apply to federal officers as well.
A 2023 survey of 148 departments by the Police Executive Research Forum found that more than a third make of a point of naming officers who have caused or contributed to a death or serious injury. Another 22 percent do so on request. Of those that release names, 91 percent reported no resulting harm to officers and none reported physical violence. Officers who experienced harm primarily suffered from the mental strain of being criticized online.
In Fairfax County, Va., Chief Kevin Davis says there is a 10-day wait before identifying officers. That lets mental health professionals prepare them to cope with an onslaught of anger protected by the First Amendment. A threat-assessment team ensures there is no danger.
“If there is any evidence, or probable cause, or even a strong suspicion that releasing an officer’s name would jeopardize his safety or his family’s safety, I would be the first police chief in the country to not release it and to tell the community why,” Chief Davis said. “But that hasn’t happened.”
Unions have often opposed the naming of officers, saying it violates privacy and threatens safety. Some departments have declined to identify officers unless they are charged with a crime, when their names would become public anyway.
But the trend has been toward increased transparency, said Lauren Bonds, the executive director of the National Police Accountability Project, a civil rights group.
“It helps the public assess whether a meaningful investigation and consequences and accountability are being meted out,” she said. It can also shed light on an officer’s record, she said. Patterns of misconduct in many high-profile police killings, including the death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland and George Floyd in Minneapolis, have led to overhauls in hiring and disciplinary practices.
In Maine this week, a federal immigration agent told his ex-wife that he had shot a Colombian immigrant, a fatal encounter whose immediate aftermath was caught on video and widely seen. She said he had a long history of abuse and violence. D.H.S. has not released the man’s name, saying doing so would put agents at risk.
In some places, such as Las Vegas, police departments identify officers within days of a serious incident. In others, like Maryland and New Jersey, independent agencies investigate and are required to release their findings, including officers’ names.
Some officers have nonetheless tried new tactics to remain anonymous. A measure known as Marsy’s Law that has been passed in about a dozen states protects the personal details of crime victims. In some instances, officers who used force have claimed that they qualify as victims and had acted in self-defense. They have invoked the right to have their names withheld.
Courts have come down on different sides of the issue. When the Florida Police Benevolent Association sought to prevent the identification of two Tallahassee officers involved in fatal encounters, the State Supreme Court held in a 2023 opinion that no one had the right to withhold their names. But last year, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that two officers involved in a shootout with armed robbers in Columbus were “victims of a crime under the plain terms” of the law.
Generally, there are exceptions for specific threats to an officer. In a landmark California case in 2014, the State Supreme Court ruled that the mere possibility of gang retaliation and graffiti that said “Strike Kill a Cop” were too vague to justify a blanket ban on identifying officers.
“Such a rule would even prevent disclosure of the name of an officer who acted in a heroic manner,” the court said.
In two notorious instances of targeted violence, the assassination-style killing of two officers in Brooklyn in 2014 and an ambush that killed five officers in Dallas in 2016, the perpetrators were retaliating for police killings by other officers, some in distant cities.
Civil rights groups and those who advocate government transparency argue that the public has just as much right to know the names of officers who kill as the names of people accused of committing serious crimes.
In Grand Rapids, Mich., the police department declined to identify a white officer who fatally shot a Black man during a scuffle after a traffic stop in 2022. The family insisted it had a right to know.
“Every time a young Black man or woman is arrested in this town, you put their name all over the news,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, who spoke at the funeral, according to local news reports. “Every time we’re suspected of something, you put our name out there.”
The department eventually reversed course and released the name “in the interest of transparency, to reduce ongoing speculation and to avoid any further confusion,” the police chief said.
The controversy was renewed this year when the Grand Rapids police again declined to identify officers involved in a fatal shooting. A resident incorrectly identified the officer responsible and posted the wrong man’s address and other personal information on Facebook, calling him a “dirty racist police officer.” The resident was charged with two felonies related to the posts.
The national debate over naming officers heated up in 2014 when the police killings of Eric Garner in New York, Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Laquan McDonald in Chicago fueled complaints that officers faced little accountability for using unnecessary force.
The Chicago Tribune learned the identity of the officer who killed Mr. McDonald before officials released it. The newspaper reported that the officer, Jason Van Dyke, had cost the city $350,000 in a legal settlement and had never been disciplined despite numerous complaints, including allegations that he had used racist epithets and excessive force. Mr. Van Dyke was ultimately convicted of second-degree murder.
Since then, many departments have made complaints and disciplinary records public.
The Justice Department has warned that secrecy intended to avert violence can have the opposite effect. There were weeks of unrest and clashes in the street in Ferguson after Mr. Brown’s killing. A report by the Justice Department found that the six-day delay in identifying the officer responsible made things worse, causing some residents to believe the police were stalling in order to come up with a story that would justify the shooting.
The report said that information should be withheld only for a specific, well-defined public safety or investigatory reason.
Chief Davis of Fairfax said that people in his county deserve full transparency. In a vast majority of cases, he said, police violence is justified.
“We don’t have to act as if we’re shouldering some guilt or burden where we don’t want to make our identities known to the communities that we serve,” he said. “Because we’re the good guys.”
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