Whether an officer is publicly identified after shooting a member of the public in Nebraska seems to depend on two key factors: what agency the officer works for and whether the gunshot victim dies.
Over the past decade, local police agencies have proved to be inconsistent on when — or if — they identify their officers involved in police shootings, sometimes releasing their identities within a few days of such a shooting and sometimes refusing to ever identify involved officers publicly, according to a Journal Star review of 10 years’ worth of media reports.
In Nebraska, grand juries are convened to review law enforcement actions in fatal shootings to investigate whether police committed criminal wrongdoing. Even if officers are cleared of such wrongdoing, a transcript of the grand jury proceeding — which includes the involved officer’s name — is made available for public review.
But grand juries aren’t convened to review nonfatal police shootings.
The Nebraska State Patrol has consistently declined to identify troopers who shoot members of the public — even when those gunshot wound victims die — largely because the agency’s contract with the state troopers union prevents the public identification of troopers under internal investigation, leaving grand juries as the only outlet for identification.
"We do not release the names of officers involved in officer-involved shootings," State Patrol Col. John Bolduc said at news conference in May. "We never have. And that policy is not likely to change anytime soon."
The U.S. Marshal’s Service — which has been involved in three police shootings in Lincoln since 2014, though only one of them was fatal — has taken a similar approach. Deputy U.S. marshals who have shot people in Lincoln over the past decade have only been identified through grand jury transcripts or criminal court proceedings, according to the review of media reports.
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The Lincoln Police Department has grown increasingly hesitant to identify officers involved in shootings since the city hired Chief Teresa Ewins to lead the department in September 2021, according to the review.
In four Lincoln Police-involved shootings from 2015 to February 2021, the police department identified its involved officers at news conferences long before grand juries were convened to review the actions of law enforcement.
But in the two police shootings since, department officials have declined to publicly identify the investigators who witnessed or participated in the incidents, deferring instead to the grand jury process.
"It's gonna be up to — to really me looking at the assessment, looking at the threat against the officers that could be posed,†Ewins said in May, following the shooting of Chace Abney at the hands of LPD and State Patrol investigators who remain unidentified.
“It may go to a grand jury,†she said. “And so, we can't give you information until we understand where it's gonna be going."
Deputies with the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office have been involved in two shootings since 2013, including one fatal shooting.
In both instances, Sheriff Terry Wagner has publicly identified the deputies involved.
Review of police shootings in Lincoln since 2013
1. Douglas DaMoude, May 30, 2014
2. Tyson Hubbard, March 5, 2015
3. Tareik Artis, Sept. 22, 2015
4. Zachary Grigsby, Nov. 29, 2015
5. Germichael Kennedy, June 26, 2016
6. Thomas Sailors, Jan. 5, 2018
7. Christopher Brennauer, Dec. 29, 2018
8. Joseph Francis Cimino, Oct. 8, 2019
9. Hailey Stainbrook and Christian Alexander, Feb. 20, 2021