Cleveland Director of Public Safety Karrie Howard鈥檚 decision to remove police officers鈥� names and badge numbers from internal department bulletins that detail discipline cases has prompted new questions about the level of transparency required for a department under federal oversight.
Howard said in an email to The Marshall Project - Cleveland that he made the decision in October, but it wasn鈥檛 announced to officers or the public. The formal write-ups, distributed monthly, detail police department employee discipline ranging from warning letters for failing to turn on a body camera to serious brutality or dishonesty that result in firings.
The safety director said that officers felt that the open notices made shaming part of the discipline and led to 鈥渟ignificant misinformation.鈥�
The goal of the notices, Howard said, was to provide 鈥渇act-based summaries and dispel any notion regarding lack of fairness in outcomes.鈥�
鈥淭hese notices are prepared and disseminated in the spirit of transparency and truth in accountability,鈥� Howard wrote. 鈥淭here is little to no value in providing the name of the subject officer.鈥�
Howard鈥檚 move comes after Mayor Justin Bibb campaigned and promised to bring more transparency to policing. It also follows Bibb鈥檚 pledge in October to to address privacy and civil rights concerns over how police officers use surveillance cameras and other electronic tools across the city.
Howard recently told The Marshall Project - Cleveland that the formation of the committee has stalled, because the city was waiting until the new Community Police Commission, whose members were sworn in last month, begins work.
City officials told The Marshall Project they will release the monthly notices without the officers鈥� names. They will also release the final discipline decisions for individual officers that include their names in response to public records requests, and that the information will be posted to its records It鈥檚 unclear whether all discipline records are currently being posted. The new procedure also makes it harder for residents and community groups to review the records without reading each of the individual letters, which are posted in alphabetical order.
Two veteran Cleveland police officers 鈥� a supervisor and a detective 鈥� spoke to The Marshall Project - Cleveland about Howard鈥檚 policy. Because officers can be disciplined for speaking to news media without permission from the department, The Marshall Project is not identifying them by name.
The supervisor said some officers were upset seeing their names on the notices.
Others, he said, 鈥渇eel like (Howard) is trying to hide the screw-up officers鈥� and that 鈥減eople want to know鈥� the names of officers who commit serious misdeeds.
鈥淲e want to know who we鈥檙e teamed up with,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 important to a lot of officers. That鈥檚 extremely important. Discipline should be a public matter, too.鈥�
The detective said nobody could figure out why Howard censored the reports and that the notices should contain officer names.
When told of Howard's response to The Marshall Project - Cleveland, the officer said: 鈥淗e doesn鈥檛 care what officers tell him when they go before him for discipline. Why would he care if they were shamed? He鈥檚 hammering them.鈥�
Jeff Follmer, president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen鈥檚 Association, said he believes removing the officers鈥� names from discipline lists is an effort to help boost morale within the department.
Follmer cautioned that the discipline process isn鈥檛 complete when the discipline notices are posted and that all records, including an officer's name, are eventually available to the public.
鈥淭he process is over once the arbitration case is ruled on,鈥� he said.
Since Howard removed the names, Follmer said he has received calls from his union members asking to know which officers were disciplined for the more serious violations.
Early in the consent decree process, a years-long agreement between the city and federal government to reform police abuses, the team hired by Cleveland to monitor the department鈥檚 progress questioned the practice of circulating discipline notices that identified employees. A 2018 report from the team noted that no member of the monitoring team could 鈥渞ecall seeing this utilized in any other police department that it has run, worked in, worked with or seen.鈥�
Officers told the monitoring team that the way the notices were circulated and highlighted during roll calls reflected the 鈥渘egativity within the department,鈥� according to the .
At the time, officers said discipline was increasing even though serious incidents, such as officers using force against residents, were decreasing. Officers also said they felt that punishments administered were 鈥渁rbitrary鈥� and inconsistent. Or, as one officer put it, there was 鈥渘o rhyme or reason why someone gets a certain number of days鈥� of suspension.
In one incident, an officer received an award and then was later disciplined for the same incident.
Two years later, the suggested ways to balance the mandate for transparency in sharing discipline information with the public with the goals of 鈥渃orrecting misinformation, organizational learning and growth.鈥�
The commission stopped short of recommending that names and badge numbers be removed and instead said the city should comply with Ohio public records law and 鈥渟hare disciplinary information internally at its discretion.鈥�
鈥淪haring of information should be done in a manner that respects privacy when warranted and does not incur unnecessary internal shaming of an employee who has been disciplined,鈥� the committee stated.
Richard Jackson, a retired Cleveland police sergeant, was a member of the Community Police Commission when the issue was initially raised. The idea, he said, was to remove the names 鈥渇or a short time and then getting back to putting the names back in.鈥�
Jackson agreed from his own experience as a supervisor that the notices were not a true assessment of an officer. It could be that the officer didn鈥檛 have proper training, instruction or supervision, Jackson said, or that they weren鈥檛 well-liked by their supervisor. That was a primary concern of the commission and monitoring team, said Jackson, also a member of the Black Shield Police Association, which provides support for officers of color in the Cleveland area.
The commission itself struggled to get access to discipline notices and memos from Cleveland police in a timely manner.
鈥淲hen we asked for the documents we were consistently turned away but the judge stepped in,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e were trying to build a database so we could see a progression of discipline. We were looking for the data to prove or disprove what we were hearing.鈥�
Joanna Schwartz, professor of law at the UCLA School of Law and an expert on police misconduct, said 鈥渋t is important for both officers and the public to have information about disciplined officers, and there is no legal restriction against it.鈥� The Cleveland discipline notices contain misconduct allegations that have been both substantiated and unfounded.
Schwartz said the need for transparency and deterrence outweighs any potential embarrassment.
鈥淭here is a lot of conversation right now, in the wake of the death of Tyre Nichols, about how best to deter future misconduct,鈥� Schwartz said. 鈥淚f publishing the names of disciplined officers shames them, this is an indication that the system is working.鈥�
This article was published in partnership with , a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system.