Readers React: Complaints against police officers ought to be made public

To the editor: In California, in order to get information on a police officer, an attorney must file a Pitchess motion. In my career of more than 15 years as an trial attorney, I have never heard of any lawyer requesting information on where a cop lives or his or her family members or personal preferences. (“Does the public have a right to know a cop’s history?” Opinion, June 2)

Instead, attorneys are going after public complaints. How are those private? They are not. “Officer privacy” is gobbledygook.

Police unions surely warned the lawmakers in California who recently killed a transparency bill that the taxpayer money spent on training officers will be wasted if we allow malcontents to lodge unnecessary complaints, that cops will be less aggressive out of fear of provoking complaints.

This is not about officer privacy. Think about it: A citizen publicly lodges a complaint against a public police officer regarding his or her public duties, and this complaint is lodged with a public agency funded by public taxpayer dollars. There is nothing private about that. If officer privacy were the issue, the law would simply say that there shall be no release of an officer’s home address, phone, family, friends, financial, medical or other private records.

Public misconduct is not private.

Paul Garcia, Whittier

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