Police Complaints To Be Posted Online: Mayor Kenney

PHILADELPHIA – Complaints lodged against Philadelphia Police will soon be posted online thanks to an executive order recently signed by Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney.

With the new order in place, data regarding the most recently processed complaints will be posted online every month.

"The release of this data is a common-sense reform that I hope will serve to increase community-police trust,” Kenney said. “Everyone who works for the City of Philadelphia is a public servant, and the public deserves to know we will take their complaints about any City service seriously. This data will show residents in an easily accessible, online format how the City handles complaints against police officers.”

Before this order was signed, these complaints had to be viewed in person at the police Inernal Affair Bureau.

In the announcement of the order, the city said the data sets will include a brief narrative of the complaint, the district in which the complaint occurred, complaint classification, investigative finding, Police Board of Inquiry determination, reference numbers, and any other information determined by the Commissioner or his designee to be appropriate.

While all that information will be available, certain details will be redacted to provide safety of all parties involved in the complaint. Information subject to being redacted includes first and last names, social security numbers, medical information, police shift hours, surveillance camera loations, and more.

A full list of information subject to be redacted is available on page 11 of the executive order, which can be seen online here.

This information will be posted online beginning on Nov. 1.

Three previous years of data will also be posted by early 2018.

Image via CPOA, Flickr Commons