USA TODAY reporters Gina Barton, Daphne Duret and Brett Murphy set out to establish the extent to which law enforcement punishes whistleblowers within its ranks. In a sweeping investigation into reprisals against officers who break the ‘blue wall of silence’ to expose wrongdoing, they revealed that police departments across the country share a culture of retaliation that helps leadership avoid accountability—and leaves whistleblowers unprotected. 

The reporters documented over 300 reprisals against police whistleblowers. They turned the records they acquired into the most comprehensive public accounting of police retaliation ever compiled, including dozens of examples never before reported.

They concluded that “there is no wrongdoing so egregious or clear cut that a whistleblower can feel safe in bringing it to light.”

Photo: Jarrad Henderson

Whistleblowers who experienced reprisals included an officer in South Carolina who leaked that other officers had beaten a prisoner to death; a Florida detective who turned in a captain who had impregnated a 16-year-old girl; and an Oregon sergeant who filed a complaint about another officer boasting about killing an unarmed teenager. After speaking out, all of them were forced out of their departments and branded traitors by fellow officers.

Cops who blow the whistle have found dead rats and feces stuffed in their lockers, seen their requests for backup ignored, had drugs planted on them, and had their lives and their families threatened by fellow officers. Whistleblowers have been fired on flimsy pretexts, jailed, and in at least one case, been forcibly committed to a psychiatric facility.

The reporters also revealed the ways the system rewards officers who participate in coverups with promotions and overtime, and shields leaders from accountability. They also unmasked the mechanisms police departments across the country use to hide information from the public and the families of victims of brutality.

USA TODAY found that police unions play a critical role in enforcing the ‘blue wall of silence.’ They often back cops accused of misconduct during court and disciplinary hearings but not those who turn them in. Police unions have also lobbied for rules that make things harder for officers who want to come forward and easier for departments to hide misconduct.

The impact of the project was immediate and far-reaching: The Illinois Attorney General opened an investigation into the Joliet Police Department the day after USA TODAY published a story about a whistleblower there. The police chief was fired, and local union officials faced international criticism when they responded to USA TODAY’s reporting by expelling the whistleblower from the union. The NAACP and a group of lawyers called for an FBI probe into new evidence the reporters uncovered in Baton Rouge concerning a death in custody and state lawmakers in Louisiana recently introduced legislation that would give police whistleblowers more protections. A police department in New Jersey abruptly lifted a two-year forced administrative leave against a whistleblower after reporters began investigating his case.

Frank Serpico, America’s most famous police whistleblower, compared USA TODAY’s findings to those of the Knapp Commission, before which he testified in the 1970s. “This is the media’s purpose to society,” he said in a tweet.

This investigation exposes a nationwide culture of retaliation, perhaps most notably in departments that have adopted strict accountability measures. When law enforcement leaders and other local officials silence whistleblowers, reforms like body cameras and civilian oversight boards prove virtually worthless.