Release the SWAT report

Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton has every right to examine the operations of his department's Special Weapons and Tactics unit. He has every right -- a responsibility, even -- to determine what happened in August 2005, when officers of that unit shot and killed Suzie Peña, a 19-month-old girl whose father used her as a shield during his fatal standoff with SWAT (Suzie Peña's tragic death marked the first time in SWAT's long and honorable history that it lost a hostage). What Bratton does not have the right to do is conduct that examination in secret. And yet that's precisely what he has done, in the process undermining the officers of SWAT as well as the LAPD's relationship with the public and its civilian Police Commission.

There are good reasons why some Police Department matters cannot be readily shared with press and public. Criminal investigations are sometimes best conducted, at least initially, outside close public scrutiny. Some personnel inquiriesdeserve protection, at least when they involve personal facts with no bearing onthe public's right to hold its police accountable. In the case of the SWAT report, it is conceivable that portions of the final draft should be kept private.