Can flawed cops flee their records?

Opinion editor’s note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.

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The fatal shooting of a Black woman in her Illinois home by a white cop she had called for help once again highlights the critical importance of officer vetting. Turns out the policeman involved had a history of dubious behavior at previous jobs. Why was he hired at all?

It demonstrates once again the importance of thorough, comprehensive investigations of officer applicants’ backgrounds before that person is offered a law enforcement badge.

Here’s what happened: Sean Grayson, a deputy sheriff in Sangamon County, responded to a 911 call from Sonya Massey, who had reported a prowler. Grayson entered Massey’s home near Springfield and noticed she had a pot on her stove. Concerned that she might throw whatever was in that pot at him, he fired the three shots that killed her.

Massey, 36, had a history of mental illness, but the officer body cam video did not show that she acted aggressively during the interaction. That video evidence prompted Grayson’s boss, Sheriff Jack Campbell, to denounce the deputy’s behavior and fire him. Now Grayson, 30, faces three counts of first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct.

Campbell had hired Grayson in May 2023 to work for the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Department even though Grayson had been dismissed from the Army for the first of two drunken-driving convictions in which he had a weapon in his car and though he‘d frequently changed jobs.

“Six jobs in four years should have raised a red flag. And you would ask why he wasn’t hired full time in any of those [part-time] jobs,” Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Police Executive Research Forum, told the Associated Press. “Combined with a track record of DUIs, it would be enough to do further examination as to whether or not he would be a good fit.”

Last week, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, called for Sheriff Campbell, a Republican, to resign, saying that Campbell had “failed” by hiring the officer in the first place. On Friday, the sheriff did so.

Minneapolis has had its own difficulties with officer histories — most prominently former officer Derek Chauvin, who was charged and later convicted of killing George Floyd in 2020. Previous incidents of misconduct were revealed in Chauvin’s record.

More recently, an officer was ”separated“ from the Minneapolis Police Department in 2023, just seven months after being hired. Tyler Timberlake had been accused of assaulting an unarmed Black man three years ago when he worked for a police department in Fairfax County, Va., and was charged with three counts of misdemeanor assault and battery, but a Virginia jury ultimately found him not guilty. Last year, Fairfax County settled a lawsuit with the victim for $150,000.

Now Timberlake is suing the city of Minneapolis for defamation, arguing that comments made by Police Chief Brian O’Hara are preventing him from finding work.

O’Hara said he could not comment specifically on the Timberlake case because it is in litigation. But in an interview with an editorial writer, he said that the MPD vetting process has been overhauled since he joined the department in 2022 and that the hiring manual has been updated with stronger investigation guidance for the first time in 15 years.

He said that applicants now are subject to more scrutiny and more comprehensive investigations, not only regarding convictions but also the type and number of accusations previously made about them. O’Hara also said the information about potential officers is now being reviewed by additional decisionmakers in the department.

The MPD sworn force has 200 fewer officers than is authorized and is now training and recruiting to hire more. It and other police departments — if they don’t already — should be using tools like the National Decertification Index as they make choices. NDI is a national registry of police officers whose law enforcement credentials have been revoked due to misconduct. And there is guidance both in the rules of the Minnesota Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training on officer eligibility for a license and in the 2017 federal report “Hiring for the 21st Century Law Enforcement Officer.”

That study states that “recruitment and hiring play a major role in shaping how police agencies develop, grow, and ultimately succeed … there are few major issues confronting policing today that do not stem from recruitment and hiring on some level.”