Dear Minneapolis: Don't Let George Floyd Murder Probe Stay Secret

CHICAGO, IL — Dear Minneapolis: This is no time to let elected officials and prosecutors hide behind state laws and union contract provisions that keep secrets from the public about the police killing of George Floyd.

Mayors, lawmakers, prosecutors and union bosses will tell you that rules standing in the way of immediately releasing investigative details including police videos and incident reports of active investigations are there to preserve the integrity of a government quest for justice.

[COMMENTARY]

It’s a lie. Laws that keep investigations secret from the public until a case is closed are part of a government-approved scheme that for generations in America has given cops the opportunity to get their “story straight” behind closed doors.

Those laws give prosecutors discretion on what evidence is presented to grand juries.

Those laws that stand in the way of judicial transparency contribute to a lacking trust in law enforcement in America.

George Floyd Death: Former Cop Derek Chauvin Charged With Murder

In New York City, those laws kept details of Eric Garner’s 2014 choking death at the hands of police officer secret even after a grand jury declined to file murder charges.

It happened in Chicago in 2014, too. Police here filed reports that didn’t jibe with dash cam video of officer Jason Van Dyke shooting Laquan McDonald with every bullet in his gun until the black teenager was dead.

There wasn’t a viral video of Laquan’s murder filmed by a bystander. The details and police video were kept from the public for more than a year. City Hall cut a $5 million deal with the teenager’s family to keep the video secret until former Mayor Rahm Emanuel won re-election.

Right now, in your city, government leaders are relying on a similar set of rules to keep the official police narrative of Floyd’s death, and the body cam footage from the public.

Minnesota Police have let tangential reports related to Floyd's death trickle out online: A paramedic’s report, medical examiner’s press release, 911 call transcript, complaints filed against the officers on the scene.

Still, the police incident report remains secret. And as for the body cam video, police say: “While the investigation and any subsequent prosecution or appeal are active, this data is not available to the public.”

Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman Thursday said Floyd’s killing will be investigated as “expeditiously, as thoroughly and completely as justice demands. Sometimes that takes a little time, and we ask people to be patient. We have to do this right. And that’s what we’ll do.”

Freeman wants the public’s trust that history tells us local prosecutors don’t deserve when it comes to investigating the bad actions of police officers.

His office sent out a statement saying that it’s critical for prosecutors to review all the evidence in private “because at the time of trial, invariably, all that information will be used.”

“This happens in every case,” Freeman said.

And that’s exactly the problem in Minneapolis, Chicago and everywhere.

Allowing prosecutors to investigate police misconduct under a veil of secrecy put in place during the Civil Rights movement tears at the public trust.

And it happens, as Freeman says, in every case.

The public is forced to rely on randomly captured cell phone and surveillance videos that the government can’t control for perspective on police-involved acts of violence against unarmed citizens.

It happened again in Chicago in February. A Twitter video showed an officer shoot Ariel Roman who resisted being arrested for violating a city ordinance that prohibits passengers from moving between CTA train cars.

When police finally bent to public pressure to release the official incident report we learned that the police narrative cobbled together behind closed doors by 10 police officers, a detective and a supervisor didn’t even include the fact that an officer shot the man twice.

Law enforcement doesn’t just hide behind anti-transparency laws to keep a lid on police brutality details.

They rely on the “under investigation” clause in state law and union contracts to give accused officers the benefit of doubt that evaporates when investigative details come to light.

In November, Chicago’s former police Supt. Eddie Johnson made a failed attempt to retire before details became public about the “ongoing investigation” of the night officers discovered him passed out behind the wheel of his police vehicle that he blamed on a medication mix up but turned out to be tail end of a boozy night spent kissing a woman who wasn’t his wife.

Whether it’s murder or an embarrassing lapse in judgement, allowing legal and contractual loopholes to stand in the way of criminal justice transparency are bad for the public — and the police.

While the viral videos of George Floyd’s last moments look like murder to me, not every police-involved shooting and use of force is unjustified.

Keeping details secret for months, years or until a judge forces government to be honest with the public, doesn’t protect anybody.

Releasing partial information — allowing the public to see video of an incident from one angle and not another — only further erodes the public trust in the law enforcement and fan the flames of civil unrest, particularly during this polarizing political climate.

Advocating for criminal justice transparency isn’t a political stance.

Immediately releasing investigative information — and not just when the outcome favors police — is the best shot our society has at rebuilding eroded public trust in a criminal justice system that so many people rightly believe is rigged against them.

Living in post-Laquan McDonald Chicago, I can tell you that bringing murder charges against an officer, even when it ends with a conviction, is not enough justice when laws remain in place that provide a layer of secrecy that continues to get used in attempts to cover up big and small acts of police misconduct, brutality and murder.

Nothing — neither a black teenager’s brutal murder nor the politically negotiated federal consent decree — has changed that in Chicago.

Minneapolis, though, still has a chance to be better.

That would take bold leadership — a politician with the guts to demand state lawmakers shred secrecy laws that your police department, like mine, stand behind to keep the truth about investigations from the public.

Or better yet, a brave mayor willing to break those secrecy laws in an act of civil disobedience to provide transparency that the public deserves.

Like Eric Garner in New York City, George Floyd could be heard saying “I can’t breathe” on a cell phone video before dying at the hands of police.

Nothing will change if your city remains patient while his death is investigated in secret like local prosecutors do in “every case.”

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series, "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docu-series on CNN, and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary, "16 Shots.

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