George Nilson
Plan to post police brutality
lawsuits online doesn't go far enough
A Baltimore City plan to create
an online database listing the outcome of civil lawsuits alleging police
brutality is being billed as a tool for making the department more transparent
after a Sun investigation this summer revealed the city has paid out nearly $6
million to settle plaintiffs' claims of misconduct by officers. Baltimore City
Solicitor George Nilson, who devised the new policy, said posting the
information online will dispel any impression the city is trying to hide
officers' misconduct from the public. But though the database clearly is a step
in the direction of reform, we have doubts that it will deliver sufficiently on
that promise.
The city frequently settles
complaints of police brutality out of court — typically by agreeing to pay only
a fraction of the damages alleged — rather than take such cases to trial. It
costs the city less to resolve cases through settlements and doesn't require it
to admit wrongdoing by officers. Moreover, settlement agreements routinely
contain so-called non-disclosure clauses, which prevent plaintiffs who receive
an award from talking about it publicly. Plaintiffs who violate that
restriction risk losing their monetary payment.
Mr. Nilson says the city will
consider changing the requirement that plaintiffs remain silent after a
settlement is reached, but there's no guarantee it will actually do so. The
most he's willing to offer is a review of "best practices" in other
cities to determine whether Baltimore's policy should change. That's not much
of a commitment.
Moreover, while lawsuits
against the police will be available online, the posts may not include details
about the specific instances of brutality or misconduct alleged. That's no
better than what we have now with the brief summaries currently given the
city's Board of Estimates, which must approve all payments larger than $25,000.
Critics charge that in the past such summaries have been used to hide the
nature and extent of alleged abuses, leaving the public and other city
officials in the dark about how widespread the problem is or whether the same
officers are responsible for multiple complaints of misconduct.
The more fundamental problem
with just posting lawsuits against police online is that such information
contains no independent findings of fact. That's because when city settles a
case it doesn't necessarily concede the truthfulness of the allegations. All
the public sees is that the city decided to resolve the case out of court
rather than take it to trial. But there's no way of knowing why it did so or
whether the outcome resulted in any disciplinary action being taken against the
officers involved. Posting complaints online may give the public an easier way
to tote up how much the city is paying out, but without an independent body to
investigate such complaints the public still won't know much more that it does
today about the nature of the abuses being litigated.
That's why if the police
department is to be truly transparent, the city must establish an independent
citizen review board with real powers to investigate complaints of police
misconduct and compel the department to discipline officers who abuse their
powers. New York City currently has such a panel, staffed by 100 civilian
investigators and other employers who can take citizen complaints, locate
witnesses and gather sworn testimony from officers implicated in misconduct.
It's a far more effective body than Baltimore's toothless citizen review panel,
which can't even begin its work until after the police department has finished
investigating itself.
What city residents want to see
is a recognition by top officials that police officers are accountable to the
public they serve, that no officer is above the law and that the department
stands ready to discipline the wrong-doers in its own ranks. The department
needs to show it can police itself before it can win the confidence of those it
is sworn to protect. Mr. Nilson's plan is a welcome reform as far as it goes,
but it doesn't do nearly enough to make the department truly transparent and
accountable.
