Missouri Journalists: Data for Investigating Police Misconduct

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Police misconduct is an umbrella term that covers an array of issues, including, but not limited to: use of force, sexual harassment, improper record-keeping, and even racial disparities in traffic stops. Misconduct can refer to a police officer’s interaction — on or off the clock — with a civilian or another law enforcement agent. Sometimes, the term “misconduct” is used to refer exclusively to a violation of the police department’s policies, while other times, it can describe when an officer breaks a state or federal law (drunk driving, drug trafficking, etc.).

Many instances of police misconduct go unreported, making it impossible to calculate an accurate total number of incidents in Missouri, or in any state. However, the state’s Department of Public Safety does keep track of reported incidents through its Peace Officer Standards and Training program, or POST.

Established in 1988, the POST program is responsible for issuing, and revoking, police officer licenses for every law enforcement agency in the state. When POST learns of an officer who could be subject to discipline, the Department of Public Safety can choose to file a complaint with the state’s Administrative Hearing Commission, which mediates disputes between state agencies and other parties.

The commission makes those complaints available via an online portal, which includes thousands of cases involving numerous state agencies. Because of the volume of cases and agencies, it’s not always immediately clear when a case involves police misconduct. 1 Most police misconduct cases can be found in the “Matters” tab and usually begin with “Director of Department of Public Safety vs. [insert officer name].” Typing “public safety” into the filter should generate most of them. Cases filed before February 2016 can be found here. The Marshall Project - St. Louis combed through the portal to compile every case against a police officer from February 2014 through April 2025 into a searchable database.

What’s in the data — and what isn’t

What’s in the data: The three main categories that are grounds for discipline are: gross misconduct, moral turpitude, and reckless disregard, defined by Missouri statute as follows:

• Gross misconduct: any premeditated or intentional behavior that is either illegal or “wanton” (deliberate and unprovoked cruelty). Purposeful indifference to the consequences of one’s actions can also be considered gross misconduct.

• Moral turpitude: immoral behavior, including but not limited to: “fraud, theft, bribery, illegal drug use, sexual misconduct, and other similar acts.”

• Reckless disregard: a “gross deviation” from the standard of care that a reasonable officer would exercise, particularly when fueled by a conscious disregard of the risk incurred by that behavior, or the impact of that behavior on others.

State reforms in 2023 expanded the incidents POST can investigate to include acts of misconduct committed while an officer is off-duty, along with drug-related offenses. According to its website, POST will investigate criminal offenses, whether or not a criminal charge has been filed. Because POST is not a law enforcement agency, it advises police departments to first report illegal behavior to local law enforcement.

What’s not in the data: POST’s website makes clear that it does not investigate violations of a department’s internal policies, nor does it investigate agency-wide patterns of misconduct.

Complaints do not always indicate where a police officer is currently employed, making it difficult to know if they have switched departments since being investigated. In some cases, the complaints don’t even include where the officer was working at the time the case was filed. Our database includes every known agency where an officer has worked, based on public records and news reports — but note that this list is incomplete.

A critical limitation: It is important to note that the data is most likely an undercount of instances of police misconduct. POST has enormous discretion in deciding which reports to investigate, and only the complaints it chooses to pursue ever become part of the public record. Police accountability advocates have also accused POST of moving too slowly, allowing officers to stay licensed and move on to new departments, despite being convicted of crimes or committing clear acts of misconduct.

Get the data

To download the data as a CSV file, click here. If you have access to a Google Drive account, a pre-formatted and sorted version of the data is available via Google Sheets here. You can view the data dictionary that explains each field here.

The database organizes each of the 627 complaints into categories, such as use of force, sexual misconduct, or driving under the influence. Users can either search for a specific officer, or filter all complaints by category or policing agency.

The Marshall Project - St. Louis also collected every complaint against an officer available on the commission’s portal. To learn more about any given officer, you can access a Google folder with their complaint (and the resulting decision) here. Most complaints include the officer’s license number, which can be a helpful identifier for people with a common last name like Smith or Brown.

Please note that this database was compiled manually; it was thoroughly fact-checked, but is nevertheless subject to human error. All entries can be verified using the Administrative Hearing Commission’s online portal.

The portal is also the best place to find any additional records about a specific officer’s case, which you can track down by typing their name in the filter box under the “Matters” tab. Note also that you may have to try alternate spellings of an officer’s name to locate their records (including/excluding suffixes, honorifics, middle names and initials, etc.).

What to look for in the data

As you review the database and other documents, be on the lookout for:

Patterns. Are departments in your town hiring multiple officers with complaints on their record? Are officers in one department engaging in force at higher rates than in other places? How often has the Administrative Hearing Commission imposed discipline on officers in your local police department or sheriff’s office?

Egregious cases. Do any of the complaints stick out because of the seriousness of the allegations? What action did the commission and the Department of Public Safety take? Is the officer still employed in your area?

Employment status. Which officers are still active? Have they changed police departments since the complaint? Who has a suspended or probated license?

Remember to check for smaller agencies in your area. Some small police departments appeared more often than larger police agencies. Also check for non-traditional agencies like university police departments, airport police departments, and parks and recreation departments.

Finally, it’s worth noting that data alone can’t tell you which agencies have the most officers with a history of misconduct. Some police departments may just be better at calling out misconduct than others, and additional reporting is necessary to identify meaningful patterns and trends.

Other helpful data sources

Court records: Because many of the complaints that POST investigates are criminal offenses, court records can be a helpful place to start learning more about an individual officer’s history. If a lawsuit was filed against the officer or their department, those civil cases will also appear in state or federal court records. You might find other allegations against the officer that were never reported to POST, or crimes they committed before becoming a police officer, that can offer useful context for your reporting.

Community oversight boards: Some municipalities have citizen boards that receive misconduct reports or complaints. They often have publicly available reports or annual audits. Information may not identify individual officers, but can show the scope of recurring problems such as use of force or racial bias. Note that boards vary in their independence from the municipality as well as in access to information on local law enforcement.

Public record/Sunshine requests: There are numerous public records that may shed light on acts of misconduct. If you’re new to filing public records, or not exactly sure what to ask for, we’ve included templates for some Sunshine requests we recommend below:

• POST records: POST keeps a list of every officer whose license it has revoked on its website (we’ve linked the most recent one here, which is current as of Dec. 31, 2025). You can also request a list of all currently licensed officers in Missouri from them, which includes the department where each officer is currently employed.

• Municipal records:

  • EMS records or 911 calls: If the incident you’re looking into involves an act of violence, and you know roughly when and where it took place, you can request EMS (emergency medical services) records or 911 calls to that address during a specified time period.

  • Settlement records: You can find out how much a police department has paid out for misconduct over a certain period of time by requesting claim and payout records from the municipality. Sometimes these records also contain other settlements that are worth looking into, like police car crashes.

  • Police department records: To find out if a police department is currently employing officers who have been investigated by POST, you can request the department’s roster. Department memos — or action reports that describe how a police operation is intended to go — can also be useful in understanding whether an officer’s behavior was a deviation from protocol, or if they were ordered by their superiors to act that way. While departments typically don’t release internal investigations, you may be able to ask for the total number of investigations initiated or completed in a given month or year.

Sources within the police department: Missouri’s police officer “bill of rights,” passed in 2021, closed most police misconduct records and internal investigations to the public. However, if you’re able to build relationships with local officers who can point you to useful information, we’ve made a brief list of documents you might want to ask for, including examples of what those records might look like.

Build your own database: While poring over court records or news clips, you may discover officers who were charged with a crime or otherwise accused of misconduct, but have not gone before the Administrative Hearing Commission. We encourage you to track those cases and have started a list, which we invite you to view here. If you have entries to add to the list, please submit them through this Airtable form. We are committed to trying to verify the accuracy of claims as they come in and will denote which claims we’ve vetted; however, please use your discretion when relying on this open-source database.

You can check the Administrative Hearing Commission’s portal periodically to see if POST does launch an investigation into a case at a later date. Some officers may also have surrendered their license before an investigation could be initiated.

Additional reporting

Once you’ve reviewed the data, consider these next reporting steps:

• Contact POST with questions about their investigative process, discipline procedure or specific incidents. (POST’s email is post@dps.mo.gov, and a list of their staff is here).

• Interview members of the police department. The Marshall Project - St. Louis asked retired officers and attorneys what police accountability questions they think journalists should be asking more often. We compiled their advice into a list of suggested questions here. You may also consider reaching out to individual officers, or their attorneys, for comment on their case.

• Ask advocates and activists in your city what they think about how POST is working or complaints about specific officers.

• Ask state legislators for comment about POST’s regulations or whether they support changing the system. You can search for your local legislators here.

• Ask national experts on police accountability and misconduct how Missouri compares to other states in the region or country. We’ve included two here to get you started:

  • Devin Barrington-Ward, spokesperson for the National Police Accountability Project: devin.npap@nlg.org

  • Carlton Mayers, creator of a national police decertification report card: empower@mayerssolutions.org

Style and standards

Please refer to The Marshall Project’s toolkit for reporting on criminal justice for general guidelines on language and framing.