Since the murder of George Floyd by police, there has been renewed attention to police misconduct and growing momentum for holding law enforcement accountable. But journalists struggle to get  access to public records that could be used to reveal police conduct. The outcome of police discipline proceedings across the country are among our nation's best kept secrets.

The National Press Club Journalism Institute hosted a program discussing how to break into this hidden system, featuring tips from:

WAMU reporter Martin Austermuhle, who recently co-authored a story on how a panel of high-ranking officers kept troubled officers on the force in Washington, D.C.

Maryland State Sen. Will Smith, a key player in the passage of Anton's Law, a measure that is supposed to make police disciplinary information public but has had mixed success since it took effect

Deborah Katz Levi, director of special litigation at the City Felony Trial Division in the Maryland Office of the Public Defender, who discovered that the Baltimore Police Department had wrongly expunged discipline records for more than 20 officers

Moderator Miranda Spivack, a veteran reporter who recently published a series of stories about the erasure of civilian criminal records and police discipline records, and the danger these erasures pose to holding law enforcement accountable

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• A Civil Rights Case Against the Police: Getting Records when the Chicago Police Hide Them ( Download)
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