Op-Ed: Lancaster City Police Quietly Roll Back Transparency — And No One Was Told
In March, our community came together to demand transparency, accountability, and justice following a deeply troubling incident involving the Lancaster City Police Department and Latino youth. We submitted a resolution to City Council on March 11, 2025, outlining our concerns and offering reasonable steps toward real reform. One of those steps was access to full, disaggregated data on use-of-force incidents — information the public has every right to review and question.
This month April 2025, without public notice, the Lancaster City Police Department quietly launched a new online dashboard for its Use of Force reporting. On the surface, it’s a sleek and modern interface — but once you look closer, it becomes clear that critical data points have been stripped away.
Gone are the racial and ethnic breakdowns. Gone is the information about whether minors were involved. Gone is any way for the public to track the trends that were so plainly visible in Q4 2024, when the department’s last full report was released.
Let’s be clear: this is not a redesign. This is a rollback — and it’s a dangerous one.
What Changed and Why It Matters
The previous Q4 2024 Use of Force Report, submitted to the City and cited by our organization, included:
39 total use-of-force incidents
7 involving minors
14 involving Latino residents (36%)
8 involving Black residents (20%)
23 takedowns or physical strikes
9 chemical agent uses
4 taser deployments
By contrast, the new dashboard (presumably still showing Q4 data) lists only:
29 “arrests requiring force”
No racial or age data
No mention of how "force" is defined
This is a difference of 10 incidents — and the removal of all demographic context.
Let’s remember what the original data showed: Latino and Black residents made up over 56% of all use-of-force incidents in Q4 2024, despite making up only 46% of the city’s population. That’s not just a statistic. That’s a red flag.
The report also showed that nearly one in five uses of force involved minors — children — a deeply disturbing figure that rightly raised concern across our community. Now, that information is simply gone.
Who Made This Decision?
There has been no official announcement from the Mayor’s Office or the Police Department explaining these changes. No archived data is available. And perhaps most troubling of all, no mention was made during the April 1 Public Safety Committee meeting, where Chief Mendez delivered a briefing to Council that included use-of-force trends.
How does a police department implement a major change in public accountability — removing key data fields — without informing City Council, the public, or its community oversight partners?
We are left to wonder: is this a data update, or a deliberate effort to obscure scrutiny?
Civilian Oversight Matters — But It’s Being Undermined
Mayor Sorace has recently made public claims suggesting that civilian review boards have no authority and that police unions determine oversight policies. This is categorically false.
Civilian review boards across the country — including Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and beyond — have investigative power, subpoena authority, and the ability to issue findings. Lancaster once had such a group: the Community Police Working Group. It has since been disbanded, and no explanation was ever given.
Now, we see another pillar of accountability — data transparency — being dismantled right before our eyes.
Our Requests Are Simple
Restore public access to all archived Use of Force Reports, including Q1–Q3 2024.
Provide an official explanation from the Mayor and Chief Mendez for why this data was altered, who approved the change, and how it aligns with stated commitments to transparency.
Pass a City Council ordinance mandating regular, complete, and disaggregated publication of all past and present use-of-force data, including race, age in a publicly accessible forum.
The Community Deserves Better
Our residents are not asking for special treatment. We are asking for the truth.
This administration has repeatedly called itself progressive and community-centered. But when faced with legitimate concern, it hides. When asked for transparency, it censors. When pushed for justice, it pivots.
Lancaster deserves a police department that does not fear oversight — and a Mayor that doesn’t treat public access to information as a political liability.
We will not allow this regression to go unchecked. Transparency is not a matter of opinion. It is a requirement of just governance.
We call on our elected leaders — especially City Council — to take meaningful steps to restore public trust and halt this dangerous slide into secrecy.
John M. Maina is the Founder of The Black Voter Outreach Network of Pennsylvania, a grassroots organization focused on improving the lives of Black Pennsylvanians through economic empowerment and political engagement.
