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This might change under Hanson’s successor, but Chaffin cautioned he must balance the pull toward greater transparency against the impact a policy change would have on the privacy of officers involved.

“If I was to answer that bluntly, I’d probably be looking more toward heightened transparency,” Chaffin said in a meeting this week with the Herald’s editorial board. “But I need to think through the effect it will have on officers.”

Howard Burns, president of the Calgary Police Association, said any move to identify officers charged in connection with on-duty incidents would unfairly smear them.

Burns said police routinely charge suspects with assault, but rarely announce those charges to media. A news release disclosing excessive force charges against an officer would make front-page news, he said, but convictions are rare.

The union boss said there are cases where a charged police officer should be identified, citing a case roughly 30 years ago when an officer was arrested for bank robbery, but he said they should not be subject to similar public scrutiny when “doing their job.”

“The chief’s job is to support his people as well, and if they feel that they don’t have his support, I’m not so sure how loyal and how hard-working they’re going to be for that chief,” Burns said in an interview. “They’re going to resent him if he appears to be unnecessarily throwing them to the wolves.”

Under Hanson’s policy, all officers charged with misconduct while off-duty were identified.