Feb 23, 2025 Story by: Editor
The second presidential administration of Donald Trump has shut down a national database designed to track misconduct by federal police officers, a tool that advocates for policing reform saw as crucial for preventing officers with disciplinary records from moving unnoticed between agencies.
The National Law Enforcement Accountability Database (NLEAD), which contained records of police misconduct, is no longer accessible, as first reported by The Washington Post.
The U.S. Department of Justice confirmed the database’s shutdown in an online statement.
“User agencies can no longer query or add data to the NLEAD,” the statement read. “The US Department of Justice is decommissioning the NLEAD in accordance with federal standards.”
A web link that previously provided access to the database is now inactive.
The NLEAD, the first database of its kind, was not available to the public. Instead, it was used by law enforcement agencies to review an officer’s history of misconduct—such as excessive force—before hiring them.
When President Joe Biden created the database in 2023 through an executive order, several experts applauded the move.
“Law enforcement agencies will no longer be able to turn a blind eye to the records of misconduct in officer hiring and offending officers will not be able to distance themselves from their misdeeds,” said Janai Nelson, president and director-counsel of the Legal Defense Fund, at the time.
However, Trump later rescinded Biden’s executive order as part of a broader effort to reduce federal agencies. Ironically, Trump had initially proposed the database himself in response to the 2020 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, just months before losing the presidential election to Biden.
In a statement to The Washington Post, the White House confirmed the decision to eliminate the database.
“President Trump believes in an appropriate balance of accountability without compromising law enforcement’s ability to do its job of fighting crime and keeping communities safe,” the statement read. “But the Biden executive order creating this database was full of woke, anti-police concepts that make communities less safe like a call for ‘equitable’ policing and addressing ‘systemic racism in our criminal justice system.’ President Trump rescinded the order creating this database on Day 1 because he is committed to giving our brave men and women of law enforcement the tools they need to stop crime.”
The database’s removal comes at a time when police misconduct remains an issue in American law enforcement.
For example, in Hanceville, Alabama, an entire police department was recently placed on leave following a grand jury investigation that uncovered a “rampant culture of corruption.”
The 18-person grand jury recommended disbanding the Hanceville Police Department, which has only eight officers.
The investigation was triggered by the death of Christopher Michael Willingham, a 49-year-old Hanceville dispatcher who was found dead at work due to a toxic mix of drugs.
Additionally, the grand jury ruled that the department “failed to account for, preserve and maintain evidence and in doing so has failed crime victims and the public at large.”
Source: The Guardian
