After two recent fatal police shootings in San Francisco, one by city officers and the other by a BART officer on a train platform, the agencies each withheld the same piece of information - the names of the shooters.
San Francisco officials cited a department policy meant to protect officers and their careers. BART officials said they were barred by a far-reaching 2006 California Supreme Court decision that protects police disciplinary records.
Critics say the blanket confidentiality claims violate the California Public Records Act, which promotes government accountability. They may take legal action, reigniting a debate over whether police agencies must name officers in such cases and, beyond that, whether they ought to in order to build public trust.
A patchwork of policies now exists around the state. Some agencies release the names of all officers involved in shootings, many after two or three days. Others decline to do so at any time, or decide on a case-by-case basis by assessing whether an officer is in danger, or have no policy at all. Sometimes, the identities are revealed through leaks to the media.
No IDs from S.F.
On Monday, San Francisco police did not name the officers who shot Kenneth Wade Harding, 19, after he allegedly fired at them in the Bayview on Saturday.
Lt. Troy Dangerfield, a department spokesman, pointed to the atmosphere around police shootings, which are often followed by protests and sometimes have political repercussions. Officers' reputations can be tarnished, he said, even if their shootings are found to be justified.
"The department has taken a stand," Dangerfield said. "We won't release that information and we will protect the officers and allow them to continue to serve in the city."
The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, though, said Monday that it is considering filing suit in the wake of the Bay Area cases.
BART holds back
The organization filed a public records request with BART seeking the name of the officer who shot Charles Blair Hill, 45, on July 3 after Hill allegedly came at two officers with a knife at Civic Center Station. BART denied the request, citing the California Supreme Court decision in the so-called Copley case, which strengthened a state law sealing off misconduct inquiries from public view.
Michael Risher, an ACLU attorney, agreed that laws governing police personnel records are strong, but said they do not constrain BART from talking about what officers do while on duty. He called that "a matter of public record."
Risher noted that police officers must wear their names on their uniforms. Withholding the names after shootings, he said, denies the public the chance to "evaluate whether certain officers are engaged in the repeated, inappropriate use of force."
Peter Scheer, who leads the First Amendment Coalition in San Rafael, called the refusal to identify officers ironic, saying the practice puts police at risk by damaging public trust in them.
"People are going to be very skeptical that police are doing all they can to see if a shooting was justified when the police will not even disclose the bare minimum of information, like the name of the officer involved," Scheer said.
Law up in the air
The law on naming officers after shootings is not settled, and courts have referred to a weighing of interests between the public's right to know and the officers' right to privacy.
In 1997, California's Second District Court of Appeal ruled that the Santa Barbara County sheriff had to give a newspaper the names of five deputies who fired shots that killed a man.
Police officers "carry upon their shoulders the cloak of authority," the court wrote. "In order to maintain trust in its police department, the public must be kept fully informed of the activities of its peace officers."
After the Copley decision in 2006, though, police departments began to argue that the ruling allowed them to withhold officers' names. Disclosing that an officer was involved in a shooting, they have said, inevitably reveals that he is the subject of an internal investigation.
In the recent San Francisco shootings, the officers are being investigated both internally and by homicide detectives, as prescribed by department protocols.
In 2008, then-Attorney General Jerry Brown weighed in after Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco asked whether he had to identify officers who were in a "critical incident."
Brown's response cited the Copley decision and said it did not overrule the earlier holding by the appeals court - that a police department must name an officer as long as the action doesn't endanger an investigation or the officer's safety.
However, the attorney general envisioned cases that may demand confidentiality, such as an incident involving an undercover officer or the killing of a gang member whose associates may try to retaliate.
