D.C. Police “Lateral Hires” Come Out of the Shadows After New Court Ruling

Police hiring in the District can come under stronger scrutiny following a Superior Court decision opening records of Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) lateral hires—as officers are known who joined MPD after experience in law enforcement elsewhere.  

The ruling this week (18) by Judge Yvonne Williams came on requests last year under the D.C. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by Invisible Institute, a Chicago nonprofit studying police misconduct and how it may be concealed in lateral hires nationwide, and Washington City Paper, for names of any officers hired here with previous police department work. Later hires of unfit officers have figured in high profile cases cited in a Yale Law Journal review of “wandering officers.” MPD denied any records were in electronic form (which later proved untrue) and would take unreasonably burdensome hours to locate.

After records on such hires were found and released, all identifying details including names and prior employers were redacted, making further research impossible. According to MPD denials and the District’s lawyers’ position in court, this secrecy was necessary to protect officers’ privacy.

MPD receives the most FOIA requests of any D.C. agency (over 2,600 in the 2023 year, one quarter of the D.C. total), and its frequent delays and denials lead to the most frequent appeals and court suits. Denials based on the department’s theories of legal protection for officer privacy have been overturned by courts including the D.C. Court of Appeals. The Office of Open Government also upheld a Coalition complaint that MPD redactions of body-worn camera videos also for officer privacy conflicted with settled law and court rulings.  

In this case, the court found no trial was needed since the facts were clear and the requesters’ public interest case strong. The decision ordered MPD to release names and prior work details as the requesters sought.  

Perhaps the most important weight in favor of public interest, according to the court, was the Council police legislation requiring MPD to release information on current officers’ serious misconduct. (On the history of the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act of 2022, including overcoming congressional disapproval, see Coalition blog here.)

Thus, the court reasoned “it would be contrary to that policy for MPD to create barriers for the public to find similar information about MPD officers’ misconduct in other jurisdictions.”

The court found the information potentially useful to the requesters: “[f]or example, the names of the thirteen employees laterally hired since January 1, 2018, would allow Plaintiffs to determine whether any of the officers were hired despite prior misconduct in other jurisdictions, thus providing inside knowledge on what MPD considers ‘serious misconduct’ and what misconduct is not ‘serious’ enough to warrant ineligibility…. The fact that a MPD officer was a lateral hire does not reveal anything intrinsically private about those officers but will allow the public to better understand who is policing their communities. As such, there is a public interest in the identity of MPD’s laterally hired officers.”

And even granting officers may have some modest privacy concern (for example, MPD told job seekers their application information would be confidential), the court noted their names are already published as required by law and the public interest in the prior law enforcement jobs was enough to outweigh any privacy concern.

“Despite these privacy interests, the public has a greater interest in knowing the identities of laterally hired officers who patrol their communities and where they worked as officers before working for the District.”

Invisible Institute et al., v. D.C., No. 2023-CAB-006295 (opinion, July 18, 2024), p. 21.

There are 65,000 openings a year in the nation’s 18,000 police departments – where the job pays $75,000 on average. Prior police experience can substitute for a D.C. requirement for some college. In a fierce labor market, many departments could welcome lateral hires with previous police experience. But those candidates that may look good on paper may also have past job problems that should get a second look.

D.C. requires applicants to have left any prior law enforcement work “in good standing,” but it is a serious question how rigorously that is checked. After a massive study in Florida, Ben Grunwald and John Rappaport reported in the Yale Law Journal the risks of such hires and shaky personnel practices all too common.   

States have modest quality control over the police officer labor pool. Most require certification, based on officer training. Officers can be decertified for misconduct such as excessive force, criminal conduct off the job, or lying. Such decertification actions are uncommon, however, according to a John Jay College review in 2021.   

Recommendations for federal data gathering to standardize and strengthen reporting have languished despite requirements in the 1994 crime bill to gather data on misconduct and recommendations of a 2015 task force for a misconduct registry.

A database covering only federal law enforcement officers’ misconduct was mandated as part of President Joe Biden’s 2022 executive order on policing.

Increased court review of MPD FOIA denials is welcome, especially now that the D.C. Council has legislated – as the court recognized in this case — to clarify the public interest in police transparency. That legislation resulted from community and Coalition advocacy following recommendations in the Police Reform Commission 2021 report.

The new legal requirements for access to past records and a database of complaints going forward can thus have important effects—even though they are not yet funded to take full effect. (As the Coalition explained to the D.C. Council in testimony this year, that’s owing to sky-high but unsupported MPD cost estimates that under current law bind the D.C. Council.) 

The District of Columbia has 30 days to submit a notice if it decides to appeal.

The case is Invisible Institute et al., v. D.C., No. 2023-CAB-006295 (opinion, July 18, 2024). The plaintiffs are represented by Jeffrey Gutman and the FOIA team at the George Washington University Law School Public Justice Advocacy Clinic.