By Justin Fenton
Baltimore Sun
BALTIMORE — The Baltimore Police Department says it will revisit its policy on no longer releasing the names of officers who shoot or kill citizens, after weeks of criticism from elected officials and civil liberties organizations.
Mayor Sheila Dixon said Wednesday that she had asked the Police Department to “strike a balance and come up with a revised policy.”
Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said this morning that “the issue has taken on a life of its own and is truly a distraction for the department and City Hall. We’re going to try to find a middle ground between transparency and protecting officers and their families.”
After months of informally holding back the names of officers involved with shootings, police in January said they would end the decades-old practice of releasing names, citing safety concerns for officers and their families. Police noted similar policies in New York City and the FBI, and said officers were at risk for harm with increasing access to information on the Internet. The policy had the support of the city police union.
But critics worried that withholding officers’ names will only endanger an already tenuous relationship between the police and a community besieged by witness intimidation, and some saw it as a scaling back of openness and accountability within the Police Department.
“We are constantly asking our citizens to come forward and to be ready to stand up and identify criminals and to participate in the process,” said City Councilman James Kraft at a hearing this week. “And when a citizen sees that a police officer is afraid to have his or her name out there because they could be a victim, I think it creates the perception that if the cops are afraid of retaliation, then why should the average citizen help out?”
The policy, developed by the Police Department’s public affairs office, provided that all information about an officer except for his or her name would be released to the public. In disclosing past shooting incidents, the public affairs office began redacting officers’ names, and in one instance the name of a suspect who was arrested, in an effort to conceal the officers’ identity.
The department had also pointed to 23 threats against officers last year in support of the policy, but The Baltimore Sun confirmed that none of the threats related to a police shooting. One of the threats was made by an officer and directed toward a colleague.
That disclosure angered some elected officials; City Councilman Bernard C. “Jack” Young said yesterday that Bealefeld had misled the public and called for him to resign.
Though Guglielmi had frequently pointed to other jurisdictions with similar policies, he acknowledged today that it may not be the best option for Baltimore.
“What works in the federal government, New York and Atlanta may or may not work in Baltimore,” he said.
Copyright 2009 Blatimore Sun