BALTIMORE (AP) — Maryland courts officials will reconsider their decision to remove police officers’ names from a public online court database.
The Baltimore Sun reports that officials from the Maryland Court of Appeals have an announced that an emergency meeting will be held on Tuesday afternoon in Annapolis to discuss the matter.
The names of police officers and other law enforcement officials were erased from a searchable database last week — sparking an outcry from attorneys, transparency advocates and journalists.
Court officials said their decision was made in response to safety concerns raised by police. But some police departments have said the decision went too far by erasing the names entirely.
The change came just weeks after a federal trial for two former Baltimore police officers, which offered troubling testimony on police corruption.
Anne Arundel County Police Lt. Ryan Frashure said his department did ask for a change on the information that’s included in the database, but did not request that officers’ names be removed entirely. “Our request was to remove the first names, so I’m not sure why that decision was made.”
Frashure says there were concerns about officer safety: “We’ve had situations here in the county where officers do receive threats at home.”
In 2015, some officers approached the local Fraternal Order of Police after noticing that, instead of using just the officer’s initial and last name on the Maryland Judiciary Case Search database, the officer’s entire names were showing up.
Citing concerns about officer safety, Frashure said they asked that the information be changed. Under what his department proposed, the website would list the officer’s rank, initials, last name and their id number. “That’s how they’re easily identifiable throughout the police department,” said Frashure, adding that the department wanted to the state’s judiciary to strike a balance between transparency and officer safety.
Frashure said the department is aware that officers could still be tracked using a variety of search engines — “Sure, somebody can get on [Maryland Judiciary] Case Search, look up an officer’s name and still be able to Google some information with a couple of easy keystrokes” — but that the department was trying to slow that process.
WTOP’s Kate Ryan contributed to this report.
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Information from: The Baltimore Sun, http://www.baltimoresun.com
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