{"id":1031020,"date":"2026-08-29T13:32:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T13:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1031020\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T13:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T13:32:10","slug":"op-ed-tracking-new-yorks-wandering-cops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1031020\/","title":{"rendered":"Op-ed | Tracking New York\u2019s \u2018wandering cops\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWandering cops\u201d is a term used to describe the phenomenon<\/a> of rogue police officers fired for misconduct by one police department but who are able to get a job in another police department. <\/p>\n

Although data is limited as to how many of the nation\u2019s almost 700,000 police officers in almost 18,000 police departments have wandered, watchdog groups like the Invisible Institute<\/a> in Chicago have developed cross-jurisdictional resources such as the National Police Index to aggregate career histories of police officers and expose the substantial number of cops who are fired for misconduct but are able to find a job in another police department.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wandering cops undermine the integrity<\/a> of law enforcement. They pose a risk not only to the new community in which they wander but also erode public trust in law enforcement. But as the work of the Invisible Institute shows, wandering cops can be tracked.\u00a0 Police department databases typically display the identity, date of birth, dates of employment, rank, and training experience of officers. These databases can reveal the agency in which the officer has worked and allow the tracking of officers who commit misconduct in one agency but later appear in the database of another agency.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Research<\/a> has shown that wanderers stay mostly within their states and are hired primarily by smaller departments than the departments they\u2019ve left. The research also suggests that wandering cops continue to pose problems for their new departments. A landmark study<\/a> concluded that wandering officers are roughly twice as likely to be fired or receive new misconduct complaints at their subsequent agencies compared to rookie or non-wandering peers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While most states release police employment data, New York State is an outlier. The New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) maintains a Registry<\/a> of all police officers in the state, including those who are certified and those who are uncertified.\u00a0 Although a list of the decertified officers is available online, the DCJS has resisted disclosing the identities of certified police officers, claiming that disclosure might endanger the life or safety of officers working in an undercover capacity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Recently, after DCJS refused to disclose police employment information to a journalist from Hearst Newspapers and resisted a subsequent Freedom of Information Act request on the ground that releasing such information \u201ccould endanger the life or safety of any person.\u201d\u00a0 The journalist sued, claiming that public records are legally available and accessible, that exemptions should be narrowly construed, and that the government agency resisting disclosure has the burden to justify its refusal to disclose.<\/p>\n

In Emilie Munson and the Hearst Corp. v. DCJS,<\/a> a trial court in Albany twice upheld the petition of the journalist and ordered DCJS to release the Registry\u2019s police employment information, including the officer\u2019s name, date of birth, Social Security number, rank or title, and date of successful completion of training.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

However, after DCJS appealed, New York\u2019s appellate division in Albany, in a closely divided decision, vacated the trial court\u2019s ruling, finding that DCJS\u2019s concern about exposing the identity of undercover officers was a sufficient basis to deny access to the entire police database. And, of course, denying access to the database would frustrate any investigation into wandering cops in New York State.<\/p>\n

The appellate division decision is currently on appeal to the New York State Court of Appeals.\n<\/p>\n

The appellate division\u2019s decision, in which two judges dissented, made a fundamental error in its analysis. The court never adequately explained how the information in New York\u2019s police database Registry could identify the undercover status of any officer and therefore endanger the police officer. To be sure, any officer whose identity is disclosed, whether undercover or not, may face potential harm. But that risk goes with the job of policing, and it\u2019s a risk every police officer takes. <\/p>\n

But a complete refusal by the DCJS to disclose all police employment data is much too broad and in fact, violates New York\u2019s Public Officers Law. Indeed, the appellate division majority, apart from speculation, hypothesized but never explained how the general information in the Registry could reveal the undercover status of an officer.<\/p>\n

The majority on the panel offered several theories that might lead to such disclosure. The majority suggested that comparing salaries, examining redactions, or studying general assignments could reveal undercover work. But all these theories are flawed. In fact, the DCJS acknowledged that it has \u201cno feasible way\u201d to identify undercover officers from the Registry. <\/p>\n

And the DCJS did not even raise on its own several of the theories that the appeals court advanced. The appeals court surmised that by using payroll information, or registry redactions, or police assignments, and then by matching that information with other police databases that might be available online, an investigator might be able to identify officers who presently serve, have previously served, or who might want to serve in the future in some undercover capacity. Of course, the actual identities of officers who work undercover are never revealed because these officers never use their real names. So that fact alone makes such an inquiry even more far-fetched.<\/p>\n

Indeed, after hearing the arguments of the DCJS, the trial judge in two separate hearings, along with the two dissenting judges in the appellate division, found that apart from conjecture, DCJS did not adequately explain how disclosure of an officer\u2019s identity could lead to the inference that the officer worked or is presently working in an undercover capacity. And, of course, DCJS could always redact any information in the Registry that it could show would be unsafe to reveal.<\/p>\n

And ironically, the same police departments that claim to be concerned over publishing officer information readily disclose information online about officer accomplishments, even undercover officer accomplishments. In fact, the New York Police Department publishes more information about police undercover training and operations than the trial judge in the instant case ordered DCJS to disclose.<\/p>\n

Wandering cops pose a threat to the public and to the reputation of law enforcement. Recycling disciplined officers from one community to the streets of another community simply transfers systemic harm and heavily damages police-community relations. States should be more proactive to ensure that rogue officers are identified and decertified, which would bar them legally from being rehired. Strengthening and expanding the use of state and national tracking tools is a critical step. There should be mandatory database checks during background vetting before any agency offers employment, and state law should clearly specify the criminal or civil offenses or departmental violations that trigger decertification.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rogue cops should not be able to slip through the cracks and repeat their misconduct.\n<\/p>\n

Bennett L. Gershman<\/strong>\u00a0is a distinguished professor at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWandering cops\u201d is a term used to describe the phenomenon of rogue police officers fired for misconduct by…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1009343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,412424,84438,2936,405,403,17050,5226,5225,5228,5227,279576,412425,412426,412427,135431,26516,21683,108663,412428,412429,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,412430],"class_list":["post-1031020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-dcjs","tag-freedom-of-information","tag-law-enforcement","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-state","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-police-accountability","tag-police-databases","tag-police-decertification","tag-police-employment-records","tag-police-misconduct","tag-police-reform","tag-public-records","tag-public-trust","tag-rogue-police-officers","tag-undercover-officers","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-wandering-cops"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117179052630023810","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1031020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1009343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1031020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1031020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1031020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}