State regulators plan to release a trove of law enforcement disciplinary records as early as next week, a move that would offer the public a detailed look at the backgrounds of their local cops, a top official at the Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission said Thursday.
The POST Commission is required by law to create an online database that details misconduct among police officers all across Massachusetts. POST Commission Executive Director Enrique Zuniga said officials have “finalized the collection and review” of disciplinary records after police departments submitted thousands for inspection.
The commission plans to release roughly 4,500 disciplinary records, Zuniga said at a Thursday morning meeting. At a meeting earlier this summer, Zuniga said more than 4,000 complaints covering incidents through Jan. 31 had enough evidence to support the allegations against the accused officer.
“I am now comfortable saying that because publishing this information is imminent, this could happen as early as next week but by no means any later than the beginning of next month,” Zuniga said at the Thursday meeting.
The commission initially said more than 12,000 disciplinary records were deemed sustained out of the 36,000 submitted earlier this year. But POST asked law enforcement agencies in February to resubmit records because too many were either not properly identified to the correct officer or considered not reportable.
Of the 4,500 disciplinary records now due for public release, Zuniga said the commission is redacting about 160 because they contain criminal offender information, also known as CORI.
“But this surgical approach, if you will, represents a lot of careful work that is currently being finalized by the legal department,” he said.
The commission plans to publish the disciplinary records in two different formats. The first will be “viewable and searchable by the public” and the second will come as a CSV or table format for members of the public to filter or aggregate, Zuniga said.
Zuniga said he anticipates the commission will have to come up with a “process for correcting some of this data.”
“We’ve done a fair amount of analysis and validation but still, this may require some sort of process for correcting information,” he said. “But our approach will be not to have those discussions with individual officers, but rather the agency as it is those agencies that have submitted information.”
Zuniga said there will be updates to the database after the initial publication.
The commission already maintains publicly available lists of officers’ certification status, suspended cops, officers on administrative suspensions, cops deemed not certified, and officers who have been decertified.
But the records set for release could offer more details into specific allegations.
As the commission moves ahead with the database, it is also finishing up the latest round of law enforcement license recertifications.
More than 94% of cops who have so far had their information turned in for this year’s license recertifications are in line to receive the green light to serve, according to provisional data last updated on Aug. 4.
More than 5,660 officers with last names starting with I through P have had their information submitted to POST as part of the second wave of license certifications. Law enforcement agencies had a July 1 deadline to send officers’ info to regulators.
Zuniga said of 5,665 officers that had their recertification bid reviewed by the agency, 94% or 5,361 are expected to be certified for the next three years.
Another 229 or 4% are in line to receive a conditional certification, which means the officers have met only some of the requirements and must satisfy them all within a specified time frame.
Only 15 officers have received the “not certified” status, which means they have not satisfied any recertification requirements. That could mean they failed to complete training or have a pending disciplinary matter, according to the commission.
Eleven officers require further review and 49 were marked as not recertified because they have not met any of the requirements but were on medical, military, family, or administrative leave. Zuniga said 51 individuals still need to submit their recertification information to the commission as of Aug. 4.
The commission plans to send officers a formal notice of their rectification status at the start of next week, Zungia said.
“The certification effort continues. It’s almost concluding. We are at the last stages of completing the recertification of officers with last names I through P as is required and prescribed in the statute,” Zungia said.
A policing reform law signed by former Gov. Charlie Baker in 2020 granted initial certification to all active officers at the time and required new cops to be certified.
The certifications — which require the completion of basic training, a state and national background check, and a determination of being of good moral character and fit for employment — last for three years.
State law staggered the expiration of the initial certifications for thousands of officers into three groups broken down by last name. The POST Commission recertified more than 8,800 officers and certified 1,207 new cops last year whose last names start with A-H.