Bill endorsed by Dallas PD would’ve sealed unsustained cop misconduct records from public

A proposed law endorsed by Dallas police is dead after a challenge in the Texas House, for now ending an effort to seal unsustained police misconduct records from the public.

Senate Bill 781, authored by state Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford, would’ve prohibited people from obtaining officer misconduct documents if an agency did not sustain the allegations. It could’ve shuttered access to scores of misconduct investigations in Dallas and elsewhere.

King and law enforcement officials promoted the bill as a way to standardize officer confidentiality. But loved ones of people who’ve died in law enforcement custody, civil rights activists, police oversight officials and media advocates said it would’ve impeded ability.

“It does not sit well for the transparency of our criminal justice system,” Donnis Baggett, executive vice president of the Texas Press Association, told The Dallas Morning News. “If it harms that transparency, it harms ability, and if it harms ability, that harms the public trust.”

The bill ed the Senate last week, but Tuesday, Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, used a legislative tactic called a point of order to halt a vote after Rep. Cole Hefner, R-Mount Pleasant, introduced the bill. Moments later, Hefner postponed the vote and told The News the bill is dead.

“It’ll be back … next session,” Hefner said.

The Dallas Police Department had listed King’s bill as one of its legislative priorities and a police official testified in its earlier this year. The department previously declined The News’ interview request about its of the bill.

After the bill was killed, Dallas police spokesperson Lt. Tramese Jones said in an email that “there was no change in statute, and we do not anticipate any change in our procedures at this time.”

In Dallas, police misconduct records can usually be obtained under the Texas Public Information Act even if the allegations aren’t sustained. The department receives hundreds of complaints annually about officers’ interactions with people or workplace behavior. Only a fraction are sustained by the internal affairs division, a group of officers that investigate their colleagues.

If the bill had ed, the public would’ve only been able to obtain misconduct records deemed sustained. The proposed bill carved out some exceptions: when the information is requested for court proceedings; when law enforcement agencies are determining whether to hire an officer; or when an agency is investigating racial profiling or a death in custody.

Michele Andre, Dallas’ police monitor, said the legislation could’ve significantly restricted her office’s access to vital records for reviewing and monitoring Dallas police investigations into residents’ complaints and critical incidents.

“Limiting access to such essential information,” Andre said, “would not only obstruct our oversight responsibilities but also erode the transparency and ability that residents rightfully expect from their public safety institutions.”

John Mark Davidson, chairman of Dallas’ Community Police Oversight Board, echoed that sentiment, noting transparency is “not a choice in effective policing” and residents deserve a police oversight body that is open, able and worthy of their trust.

“Oversight without access is not real oversight,” Davidson said. “It is just a symbol with no substance. When transparency is blocked, trust is broken.”

King has said his bill would’ve codified a Texas Commission on Law Enforcement model policy spurred during the last legislative session for uniformity of record-keeping.

In a Senate Committee on Criminal Justice meeting in March, he said the bill would privatize “department files,” separate from personnel files with discipline and performance evaluations. Department files include any documents relating to alleged misconduct that is not sustained.

“What we’re trying to do here,” King said at the March 25 meeting, “is make sure that the private personal information of law enforcement officers doesn’t get released to politically motivated individuals or groups and media outlets.”

He did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Jennifer Szimanski, deputy executive director of the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, said about 88 cities and 20,000 officers — including DPS troopers, Carrollton, Garland, DeSoto and Fort Worth police — do not release unsustained misconduct records currently because their cities voted to abide by Texas Government Code 143, which states personnel files shouldn’t contain unsustained misconduct.

Around 60,000 officers do not have the protection and can be “smeared all over the media,” she said. A department file has other information she said shouldn’t be in the public’s hands, including an officer’s background investigations and supervisor notes.

“It is not the job of the public to assess and analyze unsubstantiated complaints,” she said during an interview last week. “That’s the job of law enforcement.”

After the bill was killed, Szimanski said CLEAT is “extremely disappointed in the outcome” and officers “will continue to be treated differently depending on where they work.”

Testimonials against the bill were heard in the Senate committee meeting in March, including from friends and relatives who’ve lost loved ones in police or jailer custody; activist groups who said the bill helps hide wrongdoing and incentivizes law enforcement to deem misconduct is unsustained so people can’t access it; and attorneys who said they often encounter the same trouble officers and the legislation can keep jurors in the dark.

“Whether it’s intended or not, it’s going to put complaints further and further, further underground and buried,” said Sen. Borris Miles, D-Houston, who was the only vote opposed to the bill in the Senate Committee on Criminal Justice.

In a March 26 Texas House committee meeting, Dallas police Lt. Jonathan Blanchard cited the city’s $907,485 purchase in 2020 of an early warning system to flag problematic officer behavior.

It was “generally accurate,” he said, but sometimes flagged “officers who were overperforming rather than exhibiting problematic behavior,” so Dallas police suspended the program. The bill, he said, would prevent such information from being “misused or misrepresented.”

“We believe the release of a report misidentifying officers would be damaging to our department,” Blanchard said.

A law enforcement agency can decide not to sustain misconduct for various reasons: whether the officer was exonerated or the department determined not enough evidence existed to prove the allegation. Allegations can be closed after a cursory review without a full-fledged probe.

John Fullinwider, a longtime Dallas activist and co-founder of Mothers Against Police Brutality, said police departments tend to sustain “very, very few complaints of misconduct,” especially for excessive force. He referred to Christopher Hess, a fired Dallas officer who had a pattern of excessive force complaints before he killed a woman in 2017. Hess was fired and charged with aggravated assault in the killing, which a jury acquitted him of in 2020.

“This bill would make it next to impossible for the public to document a pattern of misconduct revealed by citizen complaints, sustained or not,” Fullinwider said. “But these patterns lead to further misconduct and an escalation of use of force.”

Baggett, the press association advocate, said as public servants, officers should be held to a higher standard. He referenced the saying: “A political leader should trust but .”

“That same thing holds true for citizens,” Baggett said. “They should trust their law enforcement officers. But they should be able to that trust if questions arise. It’s hard to do that if you can’t get the record. If you can’t get the record, trust suffers.”

Staff writer Aarón Torres contributed to this report.