by TChris

After Tacoma's police chief, David Brame, killed his wife and then himself, a Washington State Patrol investigation uncovered a "culture of corruption" within the Tacoma Police Department. The City responded with its own investigation, but has made public only a few of its findings.

After months of refusing to make public an investigation of alleged misconduct by police and city employees, Tacoma City Manager Jim Walton released a heavily edited version of the report Tuesday. It includes the name of just one of the 32 individuals suspected of wrongdoing: David Brame .... It doesn’t identify anyone else, including a former employee whom Walton has determined improperly shared confidential medical records with his wife. And it blacks out descriptions of all but two of 33 allegations investigators examined.

Walton says that agreements with city employee and police unions prevent him from making more complete disclosures, as does the Public Disclosure Law, despite findings that sustained wrongdoing in twelve cases. A lawyer for Brame's deceased wife disagrees.

“The city’s not really being honest with the citizens of Tacoma when they say they can’t hand it out because of the Public Disclosure Act,” [Paul] Luvera said. “They got lawyers to go to court and prevent it from being disclosed. That’s the only reason it wasn’t disclosed.

The public's right to know extends to wrongdoing by public employees. Except, it seems, in Tacoma.