Transparency the loser in police policy name game

Up until this January, it was standard practice for the Edmonton Police Service to release the names of all homicide victims.

But in January, there was a troubling change in policy. So far this year, we’ve had 17 confirmed homicides. Of those 17 cases, police refused to release the dead person’s identity in eight of them. Six of those cases were domestic homicides. That’s particularly problematic, given the high rates of family violence in Edmonton. And it feels so arbitrary. Sometimes police release the name, and sometimes they don’t — with little apparent rhyme or reason.

Why the sudden change? It depends on whom you ask. Speaking outside of an Edmonton Police Commission meeting last month, police Chief Rod Knecht seemed to suggest it was about sensitivity to the families of victims.

“When we are holding back, sometimes it’s because the victim’s (loved ones) have asked us to hold back,” Knecht said. “Sometimes it’s a timing issue … We want to be very sensitive to the victims, and particularly around domestic violence.”

But Scott Pattison, a spokesperson for the Edmonton Police Service, has a different explanation. He says that in the past, the EPS may have been violating the provincial Freedom of Information and Protection of Personal Privacy Act, known as FOIP, by releasing names of victims.

“Perhaps we were not following FOIP the way we should have,” says Pattison. “We are now following FOIP properly.

“If the perpetrator of the homicide is known, if it’s an isolated act and there is no risk to the public, then there is no need to release the name of the victim unless there is an investigative reason to do so.”

Section 40 of the FOIP Act, which Edmonton police cites as the reason it has to keep information secret, does indeed outline a long list of limitations on who can disclose private information and why.

But Section 40 is trumped by Section 32 of FOIP, the public interest override. It says a public body must disclose “without delay” any information about a risk of significant harm to the safety of the public. The override states that a public body must not keep secret any information “the disclosure of which is, for any other reason, clearly in the public interest.”

It doesn’t matter what else the rest of the act says. The public interest override applies “despite any other provision” of FOIP.

Frank Work is Alberta’s former information and privacy commissioner and a lawyer who lectures on privacy law at the University of Alberta.

“You can make a good case that homicide victims should be named under Section 32 in most cases,” said Work. “If anything, I think the public interest override has been interpreted too narrowly in the past.”

So is it in the public interest to identify homicide victims?

“It provides the public with information about social conditions, such as the level of violence in the city or a community and possibly the causes of such violence,” says Work. “The best example of this would be missing and murdered indigenous women where knowledge of trends in homicides exposes social issues.”

But that’s not his only argument.

“When someone sees the name of the victim, they may make some connection or provide some information which may help investigators,” Work argues.

“Last, the release of names would subject the activities of the police to scrutiny. Much is being made of delays in the justice system. Knowing the name of a homicide victim would enable the media and the public to track progress of the case through the justice system.”

Work makes excellent arguments. Murder is not a private affair we should hush up, so as not to embarrass people. When someone dies a violent, wrongful death, we don’t just have a right to know — we have a duty to act.

In some cases, the names become a matter of public record when cases go to court. But what about the cases where no charges are laid? In some cases, family and friends speak out to the media. But what about victims who have no one to advocate for them?

And isn’t it patronizing — in a Handmaid’s Tale way — to refuse to identify victims of domestic homicide, so as to protect their privacy and their honour, postmortem?

This noxious, creeping Edmonton Police Service practice is still new. We need to nip it now, before it becomes entrenched policy. It’s time to speak up for an open, transparent justice system. It’s time to stand up for the nameless, who can no longer speak for themselves.