We track misconduct by police, sheriff's offices, jails, corrections and federal law enforcement, in every state and regardless of party. Every story involves at least one officer named in connection with specific conduct. We don't cover policing in general or department-wide reports that name no one, and most officers will never appear here.
Automated bots watch government and news sources, pick out leads about law enforcement misconduct, and read the source page. AI drafts a short report and pulls out the data points that make it searchable: who, where, when, how much and which department. Every story is reviewed by an editor before it's published. Nothing publishes automatically.
Every story links to its sources. We mark government documents and court records as primary sources. A citation only reaches a story if it came from the material we read. We reject paid press releases, aggregators and social media posts as sources.
Each story and each named officer carries a status for that incident. We never combine them into one verdict on a person, and these statuses mean different things:
Everyone is presumed innocent unless proven guilty. Later developments replace earlier ones, and each status shows the date we recorded it.
When new reporting shows a charge, verdict, dismissal, settlement or finding in a case we've covered, an editor reviews it and we update the original story. The headline and status change to match, and a dated timeline shows how the case moved. The original report stays on the page. We only see what gets reported, so a status can lag behind events. Each one shows the date we recorded it.
We name law enforcement personnel only when a court record, an official finding or credible news reporting names them in connection with the conduct. We never name someone from a tip, a social media post or a video alone. Each officer's entry says which kind of source names them. We don't name victims, witnesses or relatives.
Chiefs and spokespeople marked "Department official" are named because of their role. No misconduct is alleged against them in that story, and they don't get an officer page.
We don't publish home addresses, family members, photos of family, personal phone numbers or emails, personal social media accounts, or badge numbers. Our goal is accountability for conduct on the job, not exposing anyone's private life. Please don't use anything here to contact or harass anyone.
An officer page exists only while a published story names that officer as involved. Someone named only in a draft or a rejected story has no public page. Pages list published incidents and aren't a full record of anyone's career. Two officers can share a name, and an editor checks each link across stories.
Anyone can send us a link to a published article or official document. We treat it like any other lead: it goes through the same checks, and an editor reviews it before anything is published. Notes from readers are context only and never a source, and a page sent by a reader is never marked as a primary source. We don't accept personal accounts, social media posts or anonymous claims.
If we got something wrong, or a case has changed, tell us at corrections@oathbreakers.org. This includes officers named here and their representatives. Corrections appear at the top of the story.