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These days, Austin Handle works almost as many late nights as he did when he was a police officer.
He spends hours on the phone with officers from across the U.S. and Canada who need help navigating the perils of reporting their coworkers’ misconduct. It’s been his primary role as a board member of The Lamplighter Project, a support group for police whistleblowers.
“We live in a world where they’re very confused. We live in a world where every time you speak up, people tell you that you’re not supposed to, that it’s not the right time, or that it’s not the right place,” Handle, 29, told a room full of lawmakers and civic leaders commemorating National Whistleblower Day on Capitol Hill Tuesday.
The annual event marks the anniversary of Congress passing the first whistleblower law in 1778. But while protections for whistleblowers in other government agencies and the private sector have increased in the past few decades, reforms in policing still lag far behind. Unlike most other professions, policies at many law enforcement agencies require officers to report internal misconduct. But in most agencies they have to report wrongdoing up the chain of command, which often includes the same people they are implicating.
Four years ago, Handle’s career as a police officer in the Atlanta suburb of...
MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has disqualified House of Representatives aspirant Edgar Erice from running in the 2025 polls due to propagation of false information to...