Get the facts before the public

The deaths of Daniel Lee Humphreys and Donald Haynes merge in a curious way.
Humphreys died in 2008 after he was chased on his motorcycle by the California Highway Patrol along Interstate 5 in San Joaquin County. Haynes died Feb. 9 in an officer-involved shooting in south Stockton involving Stockton police.
Other than the fact that the deaths of both men involved law enforcement officers in some way, the cases do not overlap except for this: both involve information being withheld.
Dr. Bennet Omalu said it was not until about two years after his autopsy of Humphreys' body that he learned the man had been tased 31 times in the space of 7 minutes and 30 seconds. He initially had been told Humphreys had only been shocked twice. The new information caused Omalu to change the cause of Humphreys' death from mild traumatic brain injury caused by the motorcycle crash to "repeated conducted electrical excitation."
Haynes, being sought in the beating of his wife, died when shot by police who said he confronted them with a bayonet on Airport Way after his car was stopped. This week former Stockton Councilman Ralph Lee White summoned reporters to say he has video showing police shot Haynes as he raised his hands. He was shot again and struck with a baton once he was on the ground, according to White. But sadly, White, who likened police to Klansmen, refused to release the video.
In both cases there is an obligation to make the information, whether generated by police or the public, available to investigators and the public. Nobody is served when there is a suspicion of law enforcement overreach.
If the CHP failed to disclose relevant information, as Dr. Omalu alleges, officers only added to the angst some citizens feel about law enforcement. If White actually has evidence relevant to Haynes death, withholding it does the same thing.
Good, effective law enforcement requires citizen participation and trust. As the Humphreys and Haynes cases stand today, both ingredients have been undermined.