If a police officer behaves badly in one place, new legislation would let police departments elsewhere — and the US public — know all about it.<\/p>\n
“We can’t legislate away racism or wave a wand to change culture,” US Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, said Friday<\/a>, “but we can make sure that there are mechanisms in place to hold people accountable for wrongdoing.”<\/p>\n The National Police Misconduct Database and Transparency in Hiring Act, introduced by Merkley with support from Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, calls for creating a publicly searchable repository of law enforcement officers who engaged in misconduct. That includes the inappropriate use of force or discrimination.<\/p>\n Human Rights Watch called for such a database<\/a> more than two decades ago, arguing that a misconduct tracking system would help “prevent officers who have committed abuses and have been dismissed from one department from being hired as law enforcement officers elsewhere.” <\/p>\n As Warren argued, “This national database of police misconduct should already exist.”<\/p>\n The problem is not theoretical.<\/p>\n As USA Today reported last year<\/a>, police who are disgraced in one jurisdiction may not just end up as regular beat cops elsewhere. The news organization — without the help of a national database — uncovered 32 people “who became police chiefs or sheriffs despite a finding of serious misconduct, usually at another department.” Some had records of domestic violence, for example, while others improperly withheld evidence.<\/p>\n A searchable database would allow members of the public to verify for themselves whether a local police officer meets their community’s standards. It could be, according to Merkley, “a critical tool for accountability — one of many reforms we need to honor the lives of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor<\/a>, and so many others who should be with us today.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n