Ohio Court OKs Keeping Names of Officers Secret

When a Columbus (Ohio) Police officer's fatal shooting of a suspect inflamed passions in a South Side neighborhood last year, city authorities refused to identify the officer to protect him from "credible threats."

In an unrelated case, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled yesterday that law-enforcement agencies may withhold the identity of police officers who face substantiated threats of injury or death in retaliation for on-the-job actions.

The officers' constitutional right to privacy—and personal protection—supersedes Ohio’s public-records laws, the justices ruled in the appeal of a case filed by The Cincinnati Enquirer.

Read the full Columbus Dispatch story.