Gov. Doug Ducey vetoed the bill Monday, which has elicited protests and raises concerns about trust between police and the communities they serve. The governor called the proposed a 60-day benchmark arbitrary and instead said local police chiefs should decide when to release names.
Ducey in February
Ross D. Franklin / AP
A controversial bill that aimed to prohibit law enforcement from releasing the names of officers involved in shootings until 60 days after the incident was vetoed Monday by Gov. Doug Ducey.
Ducey said his No. 1 goal was to protect police officers and their families, and the "arbitrary" 60-day timeframe didn't help police. Arizona law already allowed local police departments to weigh officer safety as they decided when to release names, he said in a letter explaining his decision. In one recent case, the Phoenix Police Department waited seven days after a shooting to release the officer's name, and if a substantial safety or other public concern arose, a department could wait longer, Ducey said.
"Under current law and in practice, chiefs have the authority to make decisions in the best interests of their officers and departments," Ducey said. "Their concern, and mine, is that setting an arbitrary 60-day benchmark for release of names would limit their ability to best manage these often tenuous situations and result in unintended consequences."
Both Arizona's largest newspaper, The Arizona Republic, and the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police wrote letters to Governor Doug Ducey last week, urging him to veto Senate Bill 1445, which would apply to officers involved in shootings that result in death or injury.
The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Steve Smith, passed in his chamber last week with a 20-8 vote. The bill initially asked for 90 day waiting period, but the House of Representatives decreased it to two months. During the 60 day period, an officer's record and disciplinary hearing can be released, but all personal information must be withheld.
Proponents of the bill argue that it will help protect officers from harassment and threats after fatal police shootings.
"The simple fact remains that we live in a world where misinformation can put everybody in jeopardy, especially police officers," Sen. John Kavanagh said on Thursday while debating the bill. "And until we get those facts straight, we need to shield those cops and their families from being assassinated by lunatics or political zealots."
In Arizona's Pinal County, a deputy received threats after he was involved in a fatal shooting in Jan. 2014, Pinal County sheriff's Chief Deputy Steve Henry told BuzzFeed News. The deputy's home was placed under 24-hour watch for two weeks.
"There tend to be a lot of inaccuracies in early reports," Henry told BuzzFeed News. "If we could have kept that deputy's name out of the media for a certain amount of time, for at least for a cooling-off period, then some of the negative publicity would have been mitigated and we could have focused entirely on the investigation" said Henry.
Opponents of the bill said if it become law, it will significantly increase tensions and potential mistrust between the police and the communities they are sworn to protect, especially minorities.
Adriana Garcia-Maximiliano, of the Center for Neighborhood Leadership, works with low-income people, minorities, and immigrant communities in Phoenix on community oriented policing and problem solving. The bill, she fears, will strain the relationship between police and local communities that she and her colleagues work to maintain.
"Waiting 60 days to give communities information about a shooting or violent police encounter will not be an effective 'cooling-off period,'" Garcia-Maximiliano told BuzzFeed News. "The secrecy will only escalate the problem."
Donald Harris, the President of Arizona's Maricopa County NAACP branch, told BuzzFeed News that the bill was "an encroachment on our rights that is taking away the freedoms we fought for in the country."
The bill has drawn protests of hundreds of people.
Last week, "well over 200 people showed up to protest in front of the capital," Harris said.
SOURCE: BuzzFeed
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