A few days after an Internal Investigation Agency agent called News4 and asked for the names of confidential sources, the Washington DC Police Department issued an order to all Internal Investigation Agency investigators to refrain from the practice.
In the order, IAD Commander John Knutsen instructed all IAD members: “The IAD member shall not contact or attempt to interview the media representative in order to identify the person (source) who provided the unauthorized information to the news media.”
The order was issued on August 19. That morning, Washington Police Chief Pamela Smith told News4 that a young investigator made the decision on his own to call a reporter and ask for sources.
“This is something we should not do,” Smith said. “They should never do this… This should not happen again.”
In a phone call with the News4 I-Team on August 15, an Internal Affairs agent asked reporter Ted Oberg what internal police documents he had received and from whom. The documents in question showed unanswered 911 calls from the family of a five-month-old child who became unresponsive during a 911 outage in Washington. The child later died. It’s unclear whether a quicker 911 response would have changed the outcome.
The unanswered calls were not included in DC’s official timeline at the time. DC leadership has since confirmed that the family called 911, but the calls were not returned by the callers.
The directive allows for the summoning of journalists in criminal proceedings if there is written permission from the police leadership.
“In the course of an investigation of a criminal matter and/or in cases where an interview with a media representative is necessary to close a case, the IAD member must request permission to interview the media representative in writing and through the chain of command from the Deputy Director of the Bureau of Internal Affairs. The IAD member may only contact and interview the media representative with the written approval of the Deputy Director of the Bureau of Internal Affairs. If contact with a media representative is approved, the media representative may not be coerced into giving an interview or revealing a source.”
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