SoylentNews

takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

In response to a newspaper reporter's investigation into law enforcement troublemakers, the Virginia Senate has passed a bill that would make the identities of all police officers secret [pilotonline.com]:

The Virginia Senate voted 25-15 on Monday to keep the names of all police officers and deputy sheriffs a secret. SB552 [virginia.gov] by Sen. John Cosgrove, R-Chesapeake, applies to any local or state officer, including officers from agencies such as the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control and the Virginia Marine Police.

Cosgrove said during an earlier subcommittee hearing that he filed the bill in response to a November court ruling allowing The Virginian-Pilot access to names, agencies and employment dates for current Virginia police officers. The newspaper is examining how often officers who got in trouble were able to find other jobs in law enforcement.

Cosgrove said Monday that his bill, which exempts law enforcement officers from Freedom of Information Act requirements, should be passed to protect officers and their families from being targeted for violence. "Unfortunately, our culture has changed," he said. "Many times, police officers are considered fair game."

The bill has been panned [washingtonpost.com] by [reason.com] critics [pilotonline.com], including the newspaper [pilotonline.com] directly targeted by the legislation, The Virginian-Pilot. The Columbia Journalism Review has provided some additional context for this legislation [cjr.org]:

The journalist in question is Gary Harki [twitter.com], now the database reporter at The Virginian-Pilot. Before coming to The Pilot, Harki worked at The Charleston Gazette in West Virginia. There, in 2008, Harki got on to a story involving a cop who'd beaten a black man in front of his white wife and their child at a gas station. The officer was later sentenced to prison [fbi.gov] for civil-rights violations. In covering the saga, Harki learned that the officer had bounced around different police departments and was known as a problem cop.

That led to more reporting. Eventually, Harki asked for access to a state police database so he could track the movement of officers, and state officials worked with him on an open records request for the information. With the data, Harki identified a pattern of police with disciplinary issues moving from department to department. He wrote a series of stories [wvgazettemail.com] about it, and the legislature paid attention [wvgazettemail.com]. In 2011, the legislature passed a bill [highbeam.com] adding an additional layer of state oversight when officers move from one department to another.

Fast forward a few years, and Harki is now trying to replicate his work—in Virginia, where some lawmakers are known to take a dim view of the press [cjr.org], and in a different national environment, when Black Lives Matter protests make headlines and police lobbyists are increasingly on the defensive. In June 2015, Harki requested the names of police officers who work in departments across the state, along with information about where they work and for how long. After a lengthy negotiation, the state ultimately refused to release the information. In October, The Pilot sued [pilotonline.com] for access.

A month later, the paper won [pilotonline.com] in court, and Harki got the records. And three months after that, the Senate voted to change the law, so the type of reporting Harki is trying to do would be impossible.

Proponents of the bill haven't been able to name a single incidence in which a public records request led to retaliation against an officer, but Gary Harki has clearly found multiple cases of "bad apples" in law enforcement shuffling around to different departments in order to avoid lasting consequences for their actions. The bill still has to be considered by the Virginia House of Delegates before it can be signed by the governor and become law.

Original Submission