Police arrest a drunken cop for assault after an innocent family is terrorized in its Oakland home. Four officers are placed on paid administrative leave. The case is sent to the district attorney for criminal prosecution.

Yet the public isn't told about the Dec. 7 incident.

Instead, the first account came last week -- from the victims' lawyer and the East Bay Express weekly newspaper. Only then did police acknowledge that 2﻿1/2 months earlier they had arrested one of their own.

While Chief Sean Whent and his investigators quickly probed the incident, their failure to notify the public is unacceptable. Such secrecy undermines Whent's and Mayor Libby Schaaf's hopes of building public confidence in the department.

Yes, current state records laws -- which coddle cops and should be changed -- require withholding information from the ongoing internal investigation. But they also require that police release "factual circumstances surrounding" arrests, even when an officer is involved.

Police finally confirmed that Officer Cullen Faeth was arrested. But until Monday evening the only details of that night came from the victims, who, in a claim filed last week, say Sgt. Joe Turner was also involved.

Faeth and Turner were off-duty and ended up, apparently mistakenly, at Olga and Nemensio Cortez's home about 9:30 p.m. Faeth started banging on the front door, startling Olga, an Alameda County probation officer, who was coming out of the shower, and awakening Nemensio and their two children.


Faeth tried to open the locked door, pounding on it while yelling "open the (expletive) door" and "let me in." Fearing a home invasion robbery, Olga called police while Nemensio cracked the door open to tell the stranger to leave. Faeth tried unsuccessfully to push his way in, then kicked Nemensio in the stomach as the two men struggled outside.

In the chaos that followed, Turner ran out of the backyard and appeared to point a gun at Olga from underneath his shirt as he ran by. Then Faeth knocked her to the concrete in her short bathrobe, embarrassingly exposing her nude lower body.

Neighbors helped detain Faeth until police arrived. As for Turner, police let him leave in a car with at least one other person.

Two weeks later, Lt. Roland Holmgren finally told Olga that the two men were cops. He said they were at the wrong house looking for a party and dismissed their actions as just "being silly."

The criminal case now lies with District Attorney Nancy O'Malley. The police internal investigation continues. The city will likely face civil litigation.

The full story will probably come out eventually. Police should have been forthcoming from the start.