The Trump administration took down the police accountability database

[Alexander Howard]

Police unions hated this NLEAD database

of office misconduct, though I’ve met commissioners who embrace this kind of transparency.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/02/20/trump-justice-nlead-database-deleted/

The Washington Post did not seek comment from open government advocates, who might have pointed out that this database was a U.S. government “commitment” to the Open Government Partnership that the White House made after the executive order came out.

I would have noted that because President Biden did not order the underlying data be open — as organizations asked — there was no way for civil soeicty to download and archive the records in it.

I didn’t see comment from archivists, either, with respect to offline preservation of these public records. 

The White House and DoJ didn’t comment about the takedown, which is the opposite of transparency and accountability.

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[Gabriella Cantor]

Thanks for flagging this the other week Alex.

I wanted to follow up and share that on Friday CREW sent a letter to NARA and the DOJ IG arguing that DOJ may have violated the Federal Records Act in shutting down of the police accountability database. 

Gabriella

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