The Florida Police Benevolent Association is making a second attempt in a legal filing against the city of Tallahassee to get the Leon County Circuit Court to rule that the “Marsy’s Law” victims’ rights measure applies to police officers.
The association is making the argument in the wake of a Tallahassee officer killing a black transgender person who allegedly tried to assault the officer with a deadly weapon. Marsy’s Law, which is part of the Florida constitution, allows the names of officers involved in such situations to be kept secret, the association has argued.
“Officers are people who do not give up their constitutional rights when they choose to serve the community,” the association said in a post on its Facebook page. “Do not endanger the officers and their families by releasing their information in violation of the constitution of the state of Florida.”
Freedom-of-information advocates, however, argue that such an interpretation of the constitutional amendment, which was approved by state voters in 2018, is so illogically broad that no judge would accept it.
“Marsy’s Law was definitely not intended to conceal the identity of police officers who use force in the line of duty, and it’s absurd to try to stretch it that way,” Frank LoMonte, director of the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information at the University of Florida, told the Florida Record. “When a police officer’s name appears in a report about the use of force, the officer appears in the report because he’s the arresting officer, not because he’s the crime victim.”
If Marsy’s Law were applied in such a manner, the public would often not know which officers used lethal force in the line of duty, meaning there would be no way to determine if those officers had previous histories of excessive use of force, LoMonte said.
In turn, the public would have to rely on internal police investigations to get information on key department policies and operations, he said, and that process is extremely secretive.
“Given everything the country is going through since George Floyd and Minneapolis, it’s hard to imagine taking the position that police shootings are none of the public’s business,” LoMonte said.
Initially, the city of Tallahassee indicated it would release the name of the officer who shot Natosha “Tony” McDade on May 27, but the city has now decided against doing that until the association’s legal challenge is decided.