Police lookup · Methodology
How the police coverage data is built
Every figure in this layer comes from files released by state certifying agencies, read as they were published. 26 states release enough to reconstruct an officer’s employment history — 1,972,431 officer records across 18,976 agencies, retrieved 2026-08-29.
Sources
Each state’s file comes from that state’s own certifying body — the board that issues and revokes law-enforcement certification — either published directly or released under that state’s public-records law. Each state page names the origin of its file.
Some files reach us directly from the reporting agency; others come through intermediaries that obtained them under public-records law, including litigation and settlement productions. The origin of each file is named on that state’s page. No record is inferred, and nothing is merged in from a commercial aggregator.
Where a state publishes a separate discipline file, it is reported as a separate file with its own coverage date and is never merged into the employment counts.
What we do not do: CaseParity does not investigate, verify, correct or vouch for any individual record, and takes no responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of what a reporting agency published. These pages present what was made available. Where the data contradicts the publisher’s own description of it — the computed-date finding below — both are shown, and the reader can check either against the public file.
Coverage dates are computed, not quoted
A publisher’s “last updated” line is prose maintained by hand. The file itself carries dated records. Every coverage date on this site is the date the records in the file actually reach, computed on the file that was retrieved — the basis (for example, the latest separation date) is stated on each state page.
14 of the 26 published datasets contain records dated after the update date their publisher states; 6 state no update date for the file they publish (3 give no date of any kind; the rest give only the date the file was obtained or produced). A dataset counts as contradicting its publisher only when its newest record falls after the END of the period the publisher names. Dates recording when a file was obtained, or produced under a settlement, are not freshness claims and are counted with the datasets stating no date.
What a record can and cannot say
- No claim of current employment. The supported statement is that a person is listed as employed at an agency as of that file’s coverage date, with no separation recorded. Not “currently employed at X”. Where a file records no separations at all — its coverage basis is a hire date — even that is narrower: it can show a hire and nothing about whether it ended, and the state page says so.
- Open records overlap. Measured across the 26 published files as of 2026-08-29, 69,683 officer records are open at two or more agencies at once — a real dual appointment, or a separation the board never recorded. Counted per file, never across states; the files cannot distinguish the two cases, so neither is asserted.
- Records are never merged across states. Certification numbers are issued per state. Someone certified in two states appears in two files as two histories; no cross-state identity is inferred, ever.
- Absence is not evidence. A state publishing nothing says nothing about the officers who work there. 7 states are still processing a release; 17 do not release these records at all, and the hub map carries the reason for each.
- Current is a date, not a judgment. 18 files reach 2024 or later; the rest stop earlier. A file that stops in 2022 is not wrong, it is old, and the page says so.
Corrections
These pages repeat what a state agency released. A correction to the underlying record is made by the certifying agency that issued it — that is the only route that changes the record everywhere it appears, here included.
If what a page here shows does not match the source file, write to hello@caseparity.com and say which record and which field. No response time is promised, and writing here is not a substitute for going to the agency — only the agency can change the record at its source. No page on this site exists for an individual officer, and no URL enumerates one.
CaseParity is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice.