Bellefonte has been quiet about upheaval in police department. Transparency experts weigh in

Bellefonte’s leaders have stayed mostly silent about why nearly one-third of its police department resigned since February, but transparency law experts said the borough is likely taking the correct approach.

State law requires little information about police personnel records be made publicly available, a handful of experts told the Centre Daily Times, and disclosure could constitute a civil rights violation that could subject the borough to significant financial liability.

Performance reviews, disciplinary records or the reasons for demotion or discharge are expressly exempt from public disclosure under the state’s Right-to-Know Law.

As Melissa Melewsky — media law counsel for the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, of which the CDT is a member — put it, the law is “not helpful to the public’s ability to understand why police officers left employment and whether their departure involved disciplinary issues.”

Three experts told the CDT the borough likely has discretion to release such records if deemed in the public interest, but Harrisburg-based attorney Josh Bonn wrote “in practice, I have never seen an agency disclose these types of records.”

Between competing privacy concerns for police officers, state law and previous rulings from Pennsylvania’s highest court, obtaining police personnel records is an uphill battle. It’s often in a municipality’s best interest to limit what they say publicly.

“The Pennsylvania Right-to-Know Law is not a confidentiality statute in that it doesn’t prevent agencies from from disclosing information at all. It just allows agencies to withhold certain information,” Lancaster County-based attorney J. Chadwick Schnee said. “However, what you’re talking about is personnel matters here. It does potentially expose the agency to some liability if they were to release information related to personnel terminations or potential discipline.

“... While the agency could potentially release some information here, it very likely is good advice not to release anything based on potentially liability that could occur.”

Three Bellefonte police officers resigned since February, including the department’s top cop and one that was facing termination if he did not voluntarily leave.

Officer Jason Brower was slated to be potentially fired during a borough council meeting in March, but resigned hours beforehand. Officer Matthew Pollock resigned in February and Chief Shawn Weaver resigned earlier this month.

When asked last month if Brower’s resignation stemmed from something criminal in nature, Weaver said it did not. Part of a Right-to-Know request for records related to Pollock’s resignation was denied by the borough in part due to records that relate to a criminal investigation; the nature and extent of that investigation is not known.

Centre County District Attorney Bernie Cantorna deferred to state police at Rockview when asked last month if his office is investigating any allegations made against either officer. A message left with the department has not been returned.

“We won’t comment on matters that are under investigation unless there is a public issue that needs to be addressed,” Cantorna wrote in a text message to the CDT.

There were no separation or severance agreements with any of the three officers, Assistant Borough Manager Don Holderman wrote Monday in an email to the CDT. Each officer received “the same considerations afforded any other officer received in the past that resigned from Borough employment,” he wrote.

Paula Knudsen Burke, an attorney for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, wrote in an email that it’s “virtually impossible to know what/why the separation occurred” if an officer voluntarily resigns and there is no separation agreement.

A state law passed in 2020 after the police murder of George Floyd created a database of police personnel records and required every law enforcement agency in the state to use it, but it has been riddled with loopholes.

The law does not include any enforcement measures if departments fail to comply and does not require agencies to upload records if an officer receives a warning or a suspension and keeps their job.

And the database is not publicly accessible, making it difficult for Pennsylvanians to better understand its ability to flag officers with histories of misconduct.

Democratic state lawmakers introduced a bill last year that would increase the transparency of the database, as well as strengthen reporting requirements.

The bill — which was removed from the voting calendar — has the support of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, which said it would “ensure that this vital database provides Pennsylvania communities with the kind of transparency, accountability, and compliance they deserve from law enforcement.”

“While an important first step forward, a loophole in the 2020 law made it difficult to meaningfully prevent problematic police officers from being passed from department to department, with no way for those agencies to access — or even know about — an officer’s previous record(s) of misconduct before being hired,” the human rights organization wrote on its website.

Despite the exodus of officers, it does not appear the borough’s leaders are giving serious consideration to disbanding its police department in favor of state police coverage, which sometimes happens in smaller municipalities across the commonwealth.

Council President Kent Bernier, a former state trooper, told the CDT last month that the borough is in the process of testing and hiring additional police officers.

Council’s next meeting is scheduled for Monday and — while an agenda was not posted as of Wednesday — one expert encouraged the borough’s leaders to be as forthcoming as possible.

“I think it’s always important that an agency — when dealing with its constituents — is as transparent as it legally is allowed to be,” Schnee said. “If there are legitimate questions here that the public has about these personnel changes, it’s important for the agency to be as upfront as it possibly can so that those questions are answered.”