When one of my officers is under investigation, I have responsibilities to the public, the officer, and the department. Those responsibilities don’t always fit neatly together, especially when people want answers before the investigation has established what actually happened. I don’t believe transparency means telling everybody everything I know, and I don’t believe protecting an…
Everybody likes transparency when the question is easy. It’s a lot easier to talk about openness when you’re announcing something good, explaining a successful case, showing off new equipment, or releasing numbers that make the department look good. The harder test comes when somebody asks about an arrest, a use of force, a complaint against…
Sometimes I know more than I can tell you. That doesn’t mean I’m hiding something, and it doesn’t mean the department gets to say “no comment” and disappear. It means there are times when putting out everything we know would be a bad idea. Maybe two witnesses are telling us different stories. Maybe we have…