So Bealefeld didn't have to apologize for his new policy of not naming cops who shoot people, much less change it, but he did have to apologize for not informing the City Council about his new policy of not naming cops who shoot people. Council members had read about this in, of all things, the newspaper.
"What is troubling to us as members of the council is that no one came to us about a policy change this significant and this major," the council president admonished.
To make matters worse, this new policy seemed to come from Bealefeld's new director of public information, Anthony Guglielmi, a man they hadn't even met, a man who hadn't even been paraded to their offices to shake hands and say hello, or brought to the council's catered-at-taxpayer-expense lunches, and who now seems to be making policy - policy that, it turns out, they at first didn't support because they felt snubbed, but now do support because they think it's a good idea.
They just couldn't explain it to their constituents, who were angry and demanding answers.
What were the good citizens of Baltimore asking?
We don't know. The council members never said.
Bealefeld reiterated that the names of officers involved in a shooting would be released should city prosecutors deem the shooting a crime or if internal investigators decide it violates departmental policy.
The trouble is there is no formal or consistent policy on releasing information about the end of investigations. We don't usually hear from prosectors when they don't indict or don't pursue an officer who shoots somebody, and the results of internal inquiries are almost never announced.
The committee members could've pressed Bealefeld to issue a statement at the end of each review. If the officer is cleared, he withholds the name but at least explains to the public that here is what my detectives did, here is what they found and here is why they concluded the officer acted appropriately. If the officer was wrong, then presumably Bealefeld would release the name as well.
But instead of trying to ensure that some measure of transparency is maintained in an increasingly secret process, the council members gave the commissioner a pass and revealed their own hypocrisy. While they lashed out at Bealefeld for failing to talk to them, they weren't even talking to each other. The commissioner had sent the committee a letter in January explaining the new policy, but it didn't reach the committee members until midway through Thursday's hearing.
"We're just getting the letter now," Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke said.
She read through it quickly and asked whether Bealefeld could rewrite it to make it clearer. She suggested he use bullet points instead of paragraphs in some spots. That would make it less like a letter and more like, well, a policy.
But Kraft objected, arguing that bullet points might make the letter look too official. It might actually resemble a formal policy.
"I thought it was a policy?" a confused Clarke answered.
The committee chairman gaveled the hearing to a close. The public's work was done.
