The U.S. Justice Department has dismantled a federal database that tracked misconduct by law enforcement officers—a system first proposed by Donald Trump in 2020 and later established under Joe Biden’s administration. The National Law Enforcement Accountability Database, which contained thousands of records documenting federal officer misconduct between 2018 and 2023, was taken offline last week.
According to the Justice Department’s website, the database has been officially decommissioned following an executive order from Trump, who revoked the measure after returning to the White House for a second term. Reports indicate that as of September 2024, the database held nearly 4,800 misconduct records.
Trump initially advocated for a federal misconduct database in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020, a case that sparked nationwide protests against police brutality. However, in one of his early moves after reassuming office, he also pardoned two Washington police officers convicted in the 2020 killing of 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown.
Despite the removal of the federal database, the National Decertification Index—an independent registry tracking state and local officers stripped of certification due to misconduct—remains intact.
