As previously reported, on July 3 at around 9:45pm, BART police fatally shot and killed Charles Hill, 45, in San Francisco’s Civic Center station. While BART has refused to release the names of the officers involved, going as far as to obscure their faces in released surveillance video, their names have been reported by a local news org.
Hill allegedly threw a knife and bottle at the officers and was shot three times. At the time of the shooting, BART spokesperson Linton Johnson said BART was unable to release the names of the officers involved in the shooting.
According to the Chron, even a public records request filed by the ACLU was unsuccessful, as “BART denied the request, citing the California Supreme Court decision in the so-called Copley case, which strengthened a state law sealing off misconduct inquiries from public view.”
However, the Bay Citizen reports that 18-month veteran of the force James A. Crowell was reportedly the man who fired the shots that killed Hill. The other officer on the scene was, they say, Myron Lee, a member of their force for the past six years.
Johnson refused to confirm the officer names, telling the BC that “In an investigation where there’s a potential personnel issue, we don’t release the names.”
In a conversation with the Chron regarding this incident Peter Scheer of the First Amendment Coalition suggested that BART’s policy was in opposition to their stated desire for transparency
“People are going to be very skeptical that police are doing all they can to see if a shooting was justified,” Scheer said “when the police will not even disclose the bare minimum of information, like the name of the officer involved.”
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