The Nevada Supreme Court last month struck a blow for accountability when it quashed an effort by the Las Vegas police union to conceal the names and badge numbers of officers accused of misconduct. The union’s efforts were an overreach from the start.
The case was initially filed in 2023 and involved seven police officers who had been accused of wrongdoing but later exonerated. The union filed suit on behalf of the officers against the Citizens Review Board — an independent oversight agency that reviews internal affairs investigations and complaints against the police — the Metropolitan Police Department, Clark County and the city of Las Vegas to prevent the names and badge numbers of the officers from being revealed in board meeting documents.
Union attorneys argued that the privacy of the officers outweighed the public’s right to know and that releasing the information could jeopardize officer safety.
But the idea that officers who are accused of betraying the public trust should be allowed to hide behind a cloak of anonymity is to neuter the concept of government transparency and minimizes the consequences of police misconduct. And if the details about potential police wrongdoing aren’t in the public interest, what is?
As for the safety concerns, Metro’s own policy requires officers to identify themselves by name and badge number when on official business. It’s a difficult sell to argue that including the very same information in public documents poses a threat to the officers in question. Nor is this information specifically exempted from the state’s public records law.
A District Court judge originally rejected the union’s effort, and the labor organization appealed to the high court. A three-justice panel recently unanimously affirmed the lower court ruling.
The union, Justice Elisa Caddish wrote, “has not pointed to any authority that prohibits publishing those names or badge numbers. As to [the union’s] claim that officers have a nontrivial privacy interest in their names and badge numbers that outweighs the public’s interest in disclosure, we conclude that it did not allege sufficient facts to support such a claim given the mandatory public disclosure of such information by all Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department officers.”
David Roger, they union’s legal counsel and a former Clark County district attorney, said the Las Vegas Police Protective Association may turn to the Legislature for relief. That would likely involve rewriting the state’s public records statute to reflect the union’s priorities.
Lawmakers should resist that idea if it comes before them next year. Sunlight is the strongests disenfectant — and the Legislature should come down firmly on the side of transparency rather than water down accountability provisions to appease a favored special interest.
