One reform growing out of the murder of George Floyd in 2020 was that recalcitrant states with strong police unions passed decertification laws to take away peace officer licenses from those with a track record of seriously abusing citizens.
California and Massachusetts, states with strong police unions, passed laws to decertify serious abusers. Illinois strengthened its decertification law despite strong unions in Chicago that had defended a police department with a long history of torture, abuse and wrongful convictions.
Recent cases and Missouri show that the problem of “wandering” police officers - those who move from jurisdiction to jurisdiction to evade the consequences of their misbehavior - is far from solved, reports the Gateway Journalism Review.
In Illinois, Sean Grayson, a former Sangamon County Sheriff’s deputy, is charged with murder in the fatal shooting of Sonya Massey. Grayson was discharged from the U.S. Army for serious misconduct. Yet he went on to work for six mid-Illinois departments before killing Massey. Grayson, who is white, was indicted by a grand jury in the July 6 death of Massey, who is Black.
Last year, Kansas police chief Gideon Cody, who had left the Kansas City, Mo. police department while under investigation for sexist and insulting comment, led a search of the Marion County Record office and the home of the paper’s feisty publisher. Cody has been charged with interfering with a judicial process.
Six months ago, a St. Louis police officer with a record of complaints against him, fought with the owner of a gay bar and arrested him for resisting arrest. Police and prosecutors have refused to turn over the records of the police officer's allegedly abusive past.
The St. Louis Police Department’s refusal to turn over records of past misconduct by officers has long been a source of sharp disagreement. Former Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner had put 60 to 70 officers on the “Brady list” of officers she would not call to the stand because of past dishonesty, criminal convictions or racist statements on social media. Brady v. Maryland is the 1963 Supreme Court decision requiring the government to turn over evidence that might help clear a defendant.
In response to Gardner’s list, the St. Louis Police Officers’ Association, called Gardner a “menace” and called for her removal. She later resigned.
Missouri has decertified about 1300 officers since it began decertification in 1988. That is one of the nation's higher levels.
One major loophole in the Missouri’s law is that the decertification list does not name the law enforcement agency that the officer worked for, making it difficult to find patterns in the hiring of abusive officers. Nor does the state release details of the officers’ abusive actions.
The law says, "The name, licensure status, and commissioning or employing law enforcement agency, if any, of applicants and licensees pursuant to this chapter shall be an open record. All other records retained by the director pertaining to any applicant or licensee shall be confidential and shall not be disclosed to the public or any member of the public.”
Mike O’Connell of the Missouri Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission says the state can’t provide the information on the former employer because, “In the case of a licensee who has been revoked, there is no commissioning or employing law enforcement agency.” In other words, the officer once had a employing agency but doesn’t after he loses his license.
Sam Stecklow of the Invisible Institute, a transparency and police reform group, has been tracking state law and challenging some of the least transparent. He says Arkansas, Michigan, Nevada, Virginia, Delaware, Wisconsin and Colorado are among the dozen or so states that don’t release the names of law enforcement officers for privacy reasons. The reason often given is that the safety of uncover officers would be put at risk.
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