California Supreme Court: Names of Officers Involved in Shooting Must Be Disclosed

On May 29, 2014, the California Supreme Court held that under the California Public Records Act (PRA) the Long Beach police department was required to disclose the names of the officers involved in a 2010 police shooting.

The court found, in a 6-1 ruling, that the City of Long Beach and its police department cannot refuse to disclose the names of the officers based simply on their belief that such information may endanger the safety of the officers or their families.

On the evening of December 12, 2010, two Long Beach police officers responded to a resident's call about an intoxicated man brandishing a gun on the neighboring property “At the sight of the two officers, the man (35-year-old Douglas Zerby) pointed an object at them resembling a gun.” The officers immediately fired multiple rounds at Zerby, killing him.

As it turned out, Zerby was holding a garden hose spray nozzle.

Three days later a reporter from the Los Angeles Times asked the Long Beach City Attorney's Office not only for the names of the officers involved in the Zerby shooting, but the names of all Long Beach officers involved in officer-involved shootings for the last six years.

The City and the Long Beach Police Officer's Association (Union) immediately sought injunctive relief in superior court, arguing, among other things, that the requested information was exempt from the PRA because disclosure of the names "could result in threats against the well-being of officers or their families." To support their argument, the city and the Union cited to one recent police shooting in which the release of the officer's name lead to death threats against the officer.

The superior court in the Zerby case initially issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) enjoining the release of the officers’ identities, but after a full hearing at which the Times was allowed to intervene, the superior court denied injunctive relief and lifted the TRO.

The City and the Union appealed, and the case eventually ended up in the California Supreme Court.

Although the city and the Union raised numerous exemptions under the PRA to justify non-disclosure of the officers' names, the court quickly disposed with all but one of them and focused on their assertion that the officers "could be placed in danger if their names were disclosed.” The city submitted several declarations, including one from the police chief, who stated that there was a chance his officers or their families could be compromised if their names were disclosed because a simple search of the internet could reveal their home addresses.

But the Supreme Court dismissed this concern, and agreed with the lower courts in finding that without a specific threat to an individual officer, that individual officer’s name must be disclosed. The court held that the public's right to know far outweighed an officer's speculative safety concern, absent a "particularized showing, which was not made here."

Justice Chin, the lone dissenting voice in the case, argued that the majority made numerous errors and flatly ignored inconvenient facts and case law. "We should allow law enforcement agencies to protect the very officers who are out there every day protecting us,” Chin concluded.

See: Long Beach Police Officer's Association v. City of Long Beach, 59 Cal. 4^th 59 (Cal. 2014).

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