Law Enforcement Officer’s Bill Of Rights reform bill passes Delaware House

DOVER, Del. – The latest push for police reform in Delaware has passed the House and moved to the Senate.

The Law Enforcement Officer Bill Of Rights Reform bill (HB205S)   would require investigating agencies to send detailed narratives to the criminal justice council
which would then be publicly posted on its website.
That process would be used in cases involving police-involved shootings, use of force resulting in serious injury, and credible allegations of sexual harassment or assault among other cases.
However, the Delaware ACLU says those narratives are still written by police, and will not have the underlying evidence that those narratives were written in reference to.

The ACLU says they are also raising alarms about the public accessibility portion, saying that the public would only be able to view cases that police choose to investigate, with no mandage of public disclosure.

In a statement to 47ABC, ACLU of Delaware Policy Director Javonne Rich said:

“Unfortunately, House Substitute 1 for House Bill 205 (“HB 205 (S)”) falls far short of delivering the full transparency and accountability necessary to restore the community’s trust in law enforcement. First, HB 205 (S) does not amend the current Law-Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights (LEOBOR) to enable strong community oversight boards that can truly hold police accountable. This bill maintains the current system of police officers policing themselves. Second, rather than giving the public unrestricted access to all misconduct records, minimal information about a few categories of misconduct will be made available to the public–and only if the police, without any public oversight, decide to investigate the complaints or allegations.

Rather than allowing members of the public to directly obtain information about police disciplinary incidents, it instead funnels investigative narratives written by police departments–not the underlying documents– to the criminal justice council that will post that information for the public to view. This legislation, overwhelmingly supported by law-enforcement stakeholders, continues to vest too much power in law enforcement to maintain secrecy and does not restore the right of the people to know, in totality, how police departments are holding officers accountable. Additionally, the system imposed by HB 205 (S) creates a perverse incentive for the police to not investigate or substantiate complaints of misconduct because doing so could make the results of those investigations publicly available.

Ultimately, we can only hope this legislation results in a net positive change for Delawareans, but there remains more work to be done to truly transform policing in Delaware.”

47ABC reached out to Delaware Center For Justice, an advocacy network that had expressed support for the bill in the past but did not hear back.

The measure has just 7 days to past the Delaware Senate ahead of end of the session on June 30th.