Police records bill debated
Advocates urge release of disciplinary information; law enforcement groups demur
Advocates for police accountability and transparency in Baltimore and across the state urged legislators Tuesday in Annapolis to pass a bill giving police administrators the discretion to release disciplinary and internal affairs records when they deem it appropriate.
Current state law precludes the release of such documents under the Maryland Public Information Act, categorizing them as “personnel records” not subject to public review. The advocates said that provision helps cover up corruption, allows bad cops to keep their jobs and makes it possible for patterns of police abuse to go unchecked.
Del. Erek Barron, a Prince George’s County Democrat and the bill’s sponsor, said police officers have tremendous power in Maryland, and “that power should be coupled with an appropriate level of accountability” to ensure citizens get answers when they raise complaints. “We cannot have accountability without transparency,” Barron told his colleagues on the Health and Government Operations Committee.
Others spoke in opposition to the bill, or submitted testimony in opposition to it. Michael Young, second vice president of the Maryland State Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police, wrote that it “is a settled matter of policy that personnel records are to remain confidential” and that the “personal nature of these records is a right of privacy that public employees deserve.”
Matt Jablow, a Baltimore Police spokesman, declined to comment on the bill on behalf of the department. Mayor Catherine Pugh said Tuesday that City Solicitor Andre Davis had “no concerns” with the bill.
Maryland is one of more than 20 states that shield the personnel and disciplinary records of police officers from public disclosure.
But the landscape is changing. A new state law in California opened such investigative records to members of the public for the first time. And New York Police Commissioner James O’Neill — head of the largest police department in the nation — wrote an opinion piece in the New York Daily News last week in which he argued that New York law must be changed to allow for the release of such records.
The issue has become particularly contentious in Baltimore in recent years in light of the convictions of eight members of the Police Department’s Gun Trace Task Force on federal racketeering charges. Leaked documents showed that some of those officers had histories of discipline within the department.
Baltimore prosecutors told members of a state commission investigating the GTTF scandal Monday that they are working more closely with police to review internal affairs records of police officers. However, public defenders in the city have long contended that prosecutors and the Police Department have worked together to withhold such records from them, even when they include information that might be relevant to the criminal cases brought against defenders’ clients.
At Tuesday’s hearing, those speaking in favor of the bill included residents from across the state who had bad experiences with police, mothers who said their children were abused or had their cases mishandled, and representatives of minority police associations and civil rights organizations such as the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. George Buntin, who sits on the Civilian Review Board in Baltimore, which reviews civilian complaints against officers, described cases where a police officer pulled a gun on two teens, and a team of officers trashed the home of an elderly woman — with the public never receiving an explanation as to how complaints about the incidents were handled. “These are not criminals that come to us. These are regular everyday citizens,” Buntin said.
Toni Holness, public policy director for the ACLU of Maryland, said the current law acts as a “veil of secrecy” behind which police officers are allowed to hide.
Opposing the bill were various representatives of police and sheriffs groups, and of unions representing the state’s public employees.
A union official said the bill “goes too far” because it opens internal disciplinary cases — like those about insubordination, or squabbles between officers — to public scrutiny when they are clearly personnel matters.
A representative for the Maryland Sheriffs’ Association said internal affairs investigators often get witnesses and other law enforcement officers to provide information by promising confidentiality.