Police transparency needed to build trust

Timely communication allows for public oversight and breeds confidence in law enforcement

The death of one person in a police shooting and the death of another during a chase that preceded it raise reasonable questions that law enforcement agencies should be willing to answer in a timely, forthright manner. The public deserves to know what happened.

However, the Virginia State Police delayed releasing any information about the shooting or the crash. Inquiries to that agency and the Newport News Police Department have been brushed aside.

That leaves the people of Hampton

Roads to again ask if transparency from law enforcement — which was promised in response to calls last year for improved police oversight in Virginia and across the nation — will ever come to pass.

On Saturday, Newport News police initiated a pursuit that ended with two dead — including one man shot by a state trooper — in reference to an aggravated assault, suspected abduction and suspected DUI.

Around 5 p.m., Newport News police tried to pull over a white 2007 Chevrolet sedan in the area of Hogan Drive and Jefferson Avenue, in the Oyster Point area of the city. The car failed to stop several times for police and got on Interstate 664 heading south.

When the car crossed the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel and entered Suffolk, Virginia State Police took over the pursuit, with Newport News police assisting.

The pursuit ended in a crash that killed the car’s passenger, 47-year-old Amity Jo Grey, of Newport News. The driver, Brian Michael Price, 45, of Chesapeake, was shot and killed by a state trooper after getting into an “altercation” with the officer following the crash.

The first notice that anything had happened came in the form of a press release more than five hours after the fatal incident. In the days since, details have been hard to come by.

The State Police have not held a press conference about the incident that resulted in the deaths of two people, even though such press conferences are routine after police involved shootings, both locally and nationally.

Newport News police issued a brief statement that they were attempting to pull the car over as a result of an aggravated assault, abduction and DUI, but the details of that were murky. In the news release, authorities said that no additional details would be provided.

Here’s why that’s a problem, and not only for journalists. The public has a right to know what is happening on the streets of our communities and how our police forces are operating to keep us all safe.

For example, reporters wanted to know when and where that aggravated assault and abduction took place, if the woman who died was the victim of that assault and abduction, and whether the driver was the perpetrator, and where they got onto the interstate in Newport News.

But the spokesperson for the Newport News police department said he “didn’t know” the answers, and in fact that he hadn’t even read the reports about it.

Perhaps law enforcement believes that deadly incidents deserve no explanation, and that their conduct and tactics shouldn’t be scrutinized.

By avoiding tough questions, police leadership does our officers — and the public

— a disservice, especially if the actions by officers and troopers last weekend were legal and justified. Especially if those actions helped keep the public safe.

Trust begins with communication. It is bolstered by transparency and accountability. What’s more, the public is calling for just that: greater openness by law enforcement.

For now, however, that communication, that transparency, that trust is missing. And Hampton Roads would be better off were it a hallmark of law enforcement rather than an afterthought.