Experts: Officer-involved shooting policy in Greenville removes layer of transparency

When four Greenville County deputies were involved in a fatal shooting of a man that they say charged at them with a knife, their names were not released.

The officers were placed on leave pending the outcome of an investigation and will remain unidentified unless criminally charged in the shooting.

The decision to withhold their names falls in line with a new policy handed down by 13th Circuit Solicitor Walt Wilkins. The guideline is a departure from how many law enforcement agencies have traditionally handled the release of names.

Criminal law experts say Wilkins' policy is concerning because it removes a level of transparency for taxpayer-funded departments that enforce the law.

In a memo to all 13th Circuit law enforcement agencies, the policy points out steps law enforcement must go through in the process of an investigation when an officer-involved shooting takes place. Part of the policy states that the identities of the officers involved will be protected.

“While a case is under review and no charges are made, we’re not going to identify a particular officer who had just had to use his service weapon,” said Wilkins, whose office oversees prosecution in Greenville and Pickens counties. “We’re not going to subject him to scrutiny by the public until a case has been vetted and completed. They still have the same rights as everybody else.”

Cases may arise where it’s impossible to avoid releasing an identity, Wilkins said. If a bystander takes video of an officer and his or her identity is disclosed in the video, for example, then an identity will have already been made public, he said.

Otherwise, Wilkins said it’s in the best interest of officers and law enforcement agencies to have the identities withheld from the public.

“We’ve had officers around the country and here be threatened with physical violence with family members or others in the community,” Wilkins said.

Seth Stoughton, a former police officer who teaches at the University of South Carolina School of Law, conducts research on police practices and said officers involved in shootings should have their identities made public despite the intention for an agency to protect them.

“It is rare, but there’s been a movement or a push in the last couple of years among law enforcement to restrict the releases of officers’ names,” Stoughton said. “But I think that’s a mistake, for a couple of reasons. For one, I think refusing to release an officer’s name is frankly anti-democratic.”

Officers are government employees and public servants, Stoughton said. Officers generally know when taking the job that they will be held to a higher professional standard and subject to public scrutiny, he said.

“Particularly with the relatively extreme action of taking someone's life or attempting to by shooting at them, there’s a strong public interest in knowing relevant details and that includes an officer’s name,” Stoughton said.

An identity can shine light on that officer’s history and whether there’s a pattern of them being involved in other incidents, either problematic or exemplary, he said.

“All of that should shape the public response,” Stoughton said.

Geoffrey Alpert, a use of force expert and criminal justice professor at USC, said the majority of shooting policies he has reviewed call for an officer’s name being released within 72 hours of the shooting.

“Most of the policies I’m familiar with releases the names in a very short period of time,” Alpert said.

Sgt. Ryan Flood, a spokesman for the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office, declined to provide the names of the deputies involved in the March 19 shooting of 35-year-old Jermaine Massey in the Poe Mill community.

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Alpert said he can only see withholding a name if a specific, credible threat of violence toward an officer exists.

“It just seems like we’re moving toward transparency and this is a step backward,” he said.

Investigations involving officers are fundamentally different than cases involving private citizens, said Taylor Smith, an attorney with the S.C. Press Association.

"When a law enforcement officer walks into the world with a badge, a gun and typically a name tag pinned to their chest, they waive any expectation of privacy they would have in their whereabouts and actions they would have during their shift," Smith said. "These individuals are public officials who have made it their job to protect South Carolina residents, and they don't enjoy any privacy protections in what they do by fulfilling those admirable duties."

Some solicitor’s offices avoid the issue altogether and leave officer-involved shooting policies in the hands of local law enforcement agencies.

Murray Glenn, a spokesman for the 7th Judicial Circuit for Spartanburg and Cherokee counties, said their policy states that all officer-involved shooting cases will be deferred to another solicitor’s office to avoid any conflict of interest.

“We literally don’t keep them,” Glenn said.

In cases referred to them from other jurisdictions, "we name the officer just as likely would anybody else,” he said.

In Anderson and Oconee counties, the 10th Circuit Solicitor's Office does not have a written policy on officer-involved shootings but does follow a set of standards, said Solicitor David Wagner.

Wagner said shootings that occur within the circuit are referred to another solicitor's office for a review.

"We do these things to avoid any potential conflicts during the investigation and decision on whether the use of force was warranted, with the goal of maintaining trust and transparency with our community," Wagner said.

He said the decision to name officers, for them, is handled on a case-by-case basis.

"Potential reasons for withholding an officer’s name could be to protect the integrity of an ongoing investigation, or for safety reasons," Wagner said.

Rather than recuse itself from a local case, Wilkins' policy accounts for its own review of the case to make a final determination as to criminal prosecution. The policy does call on an outside law enforcement agency such as the State Law Enforcement Division to conduct the investigation.

On Feb. 22, Wilkins released a statement clearing the Greenville County deputies involved in a Nov. 19, 2017, fatal shooting of a Landrum man authorities said brandished a pistol after a vehicle chase.

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SLED presented its findings to the Solicitor's Office, and Wilkins concluded that no criminal wrongdoing occurred.

“As a general policy, if the use of force does not warrant criminal prosecution, the officers involved will not be identified,” the policy states. “This follows the general rule that citizens who are not charged with a crime are not typically identified publicly.”

Smith said information such as officers' names should still be made available through public records requests.

"These law enforcement agencies are subject to the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act," Smith said, "so I’m giving the solicitor the benefit of the doubt that when he says that the identities of officers who use deadly force will not be disclosed as a general rule, he is not trying to avoid his duties to the public under the state’s open records laws."