PSL Indianapolis wins years-long fight for information on dozens of IMPD officers when the Public Access Counselor released an Advisory Opinion in “Noah R. Leininger (Complainant) v. Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department [IMPD] (Respondent).”
As Tanya Terry was sworn in as the new chief of police on Feb. 2, she said she had three priorities: safety, transparency, and accountability. “Trust and transparency matter,” she said, and “we build trust through accountability.”
She repeated her commitment to transparency while pleading for $400 million, or around 20 percent, of the 2027 City-County budget, at the Sept. 9 Public Safety and Criminal Justice Committee meeting. Terry told the room, “I vow as chief to be open and transparent through good and bad.” This time, the room erupted in shouts, laughter, and anger. Terry’s remarks came after a protest for justice for Dalys Jett outside the City-County Council, which was followed by a string of public comments expressing outrage and frustration over the IMPD killing Jett, a 21-year-old college student, on July 22, and their subsequent actions.
Two days later, Indiana’s Public Access Counselor Jennifer Ruby issued an advisory opinion, concluding that the IMPD “violated APRA [Access to Public Records Act] by failing to produce or deny records within a reasonable period of time.” The four-page opinion finds the IMPD violated public access policy numerous times in the complaint Noah R. Leininger filed against the IMPD with her office on January 31. The complaint included denials and non-responses to multiple records requests, with the first filed June 4, 2025.
Counselor Ruby’s office stated, “the majority of the responsive records was not received until April 2026, after receipt of the Notice of Complaint for this filed complaint.” In other words, as the police chief regurgitated her pledge to transparency on Sept. 9, her agency was still actively refusing to release the requested records, which they continued to do until receiving the Counselor’s opinion.
MaskOff12 updated with new information about cops who killed Jett
The public records requests were part of the MaskOff12.com project launched by PSL Indianapolis in May 2025. MaskOff12 removes the shroud of secrecy that protects cops. The “Transparency Hub” that Tanya Terry repeatedly bragged about only provides general data about the department as a whole. MaskOff12, on the other hand, allows people to see exactly how violent individual officers are and look up their current assignment and pay. It serves as a vital resource to inform and warn our people about the dangerous cops patrolling our streets.
Now that the IMPD’s hand was forced to comply with the law, one can now find information about Donald Meier, Jessica Dickinson, and Michael Totten, the three cops who killed Jett. Of the three, Meier has a record marred by an abnormally high number of documented use of force and other incidents.
Meier, who earned $188,917.11 in 2025, has a total of 285 “use of force” and 87 other “incidents” against him. Of those he used violence and force against, 219, or almost 77 percent, were Black people who comprise about 28 percent of the population in Indianapolis and Marion County.
Thanks to MaskOff12, we know Jett’s killing wasn’t the only time Meier and Totten used unnecessary violence against our neighbors. In December 2024, Meier, Totten, and Collin Poynter attacked seven Black people, including a 16-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy, tackling and pointing their weapons at each of them.
Despite assaulting the seven “suspects,” the cops didn’t arrest a single one.
IMPD’s actions are all the transparency we need
For one example demonstrating just how much “concern” the IMPD and our local Democratic Party have for our public safety and holding cops accountable, consider how the city used $380,000 of taxpayer money to settle a lawsuit against racist, killer cop Douglas Correll in 2016 to ensure he remained armed and active in the IMPD. On Aug. 3, 2023, Correll killed Gary Harrell, affectionately known as Baby Gee, by shooting him in the back as he walked away from Correll.
Or consider how not a single killer IMPD officer is in jail today, or that they have never been charged with murder.
On one hand, Chief Terry doesn’t need to vow transparency; their actions are transparent.
They were transparent when Counselor Leroy Robinson ordered the Sheriffs to forcibly remove people from a public hearing. They were transparent when they killed Jett and immediately praised the “heroism” of Jett’s killers by blatantly lying that Jett, and not her fellow cop, shot officer Jessica Dickinson first. They are transparent every single time they harass, brutalize, or kill one of our neighbors or loved ones, only to face no consequences whatsoever.
Chief Terry is transparent as she continues defending the Flock surveillance cameras as four current and one recently-employed cop face charges of fraud, official misconduct, and stalking. For years, the cops have been transparent by using Flock cameras without having to link their searches to a case number or enter any identifying information. This is the only “reform” the top brass has promised now that the people’s movement forced Prosecutor Ryan Mears to take some action against the police.
Keep our streets safe: Defund and disarm the IMPD!
On the other hand, we still have to demand basic transparency. The police are the only group whose identities are withheld from the public even while they’re under investigation. If anyone else is evensuspected of any kind of crime, the IMPD has no qualms about sharing our photos–contextualized only by the IMPD’s slander–to social media and news outlets.
What is more important than transparency, however, is accountability. What does accountability mean? It means holding police to the same standards of “justice” to which the rest of us are held. It means the cops can’t kill someone and get a paid vacation or “administrative leave” for months on end. Instead, it means they go to jail when they kill, assault, brutalize, harass, or commit any other crime against us.
The cops often defend their actions by saying it’s just “a few bad apples.” Have they heard the rest of that saying? “A few bad apples spoil the whole bunch.” If they wanted to “clean up” the force, they would remove the bad apples. Instead, they protect them. In other words, they admittedly have an entirely rotten force that, to put it plainly, is the most well-armed, well-funded, and dangerous gang in Indianapolis or any U.S. city.
Featured photo: Unafraid of the police, people hold up signs demanding justice for IMPD victims, including Dalys Jett, at the Sept. 9 Public Safety and Criminal Justice Committee meeting. Photo Credit: Jae Henson.