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ST. LOUIS — A federal judge has diagnosed a disease in the city of St. Louis.

The symptom is secrecy.

The prescription is sunshine.

The outcome could lead to a healthier relationship between the city’s police department and the community it serves, if only the judge can get the city to take its medicine.

On Feb. 13, U.S. Magistrate Judge Shirley P. Mensah ordered the city to make public a controversial audit of police shooting investigations in the city between 2014 and 2018. The audit of the Force Investigative Unit was used by the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department to fire the unit’s former director, Lt. Roger Engelhardt, in 2021. According to portions of the audit obtained by the Post-Dispatch from a law enforcement source, it alleges that there were mistakes, delays and sloppiness of some kind or another made in all 50 police shooting investigations during that time period. The audit takes aim at Engelhardt, accusing him of double dipping — earning money from private employers while he was on the clock, and being paid by the police department.

But the city has fought for years now to keep the audit secret. It was filed under seal in two police shooting lawsuits — one filed by former police Officer Milton Green, and one filed by the father of Mansur Ball-Bey, who was shot and killed by police in 2015. The Post-Dispatch has filed a Sunshine Law request for the audit and been denied, with the city calling it a personnel record.

But that’s not what it is, Mensah said in her order issued last week.

“The document does not, on its face, appear to be a personnel file or personnel record. Notably, Defendants do not state whose personnel record it is, nor is it apparent to the Court,� Mensah writes. “Defendants have also not pointed to any information in the document that would be particularly sensitive or personal as to any particular employee, such as medical information or social security numbers. Although the FIU Audit certainly discusses the activities of various police personnel, that alone cannot turn the document into a ‘personnel record’ that must be kept confidential.�

To the extent that the Force Investigative Unit audit is a personnel record at all, it would be related to Engelhardt, Mensah said, and so it’s worth noting that Green’s and Ball-Bey’s attorneys — Javad Khazaeli, Jack Waldron and Jermaine Wooten — only knew about the audit because of a deposition Engelhardt gave in the Green case.

In various court documents, and an interview, Engelhardt also has said he wants to see the full audit and have it made public, in part because it was used by the city to seek federal charges against him. Lt. Col. Michael Sack has testified in court documents that he gave the FIU Audit to the FBI, and Engelhardt twice met with the U.S. Attorney’s office as the office asked Engelhardt to plead guilty to a crime related to his alleged double dipping. Engelhardt declined. He has not been charged with a crime.

But Engelhardt would still like to see the full audit that the city is trying to keep secret. He said so in a filing in Green’s case last week, asking U.S. Magistrate Judge Joseph Dueker to allow him to file a brief in the case related to the audit.

“I have been accused of a crime by officers and attorneys of the City of St. Louis,� Engelhardt wrote. “I have the right under the 6th Amendment to confront those accusers and have them held accountable if they have made this accusation with malice. I cannot do that if I am denied access to information which was the base of those accusations.�

Dueker denied Engelhardt the right to file a brief in the case. He previously reached the opposite conclusion that Mensah did relating to federal court rules on transparency, allowing the city to keep the FIU Audit secret.

But Mensah’s ruling will now lead to the audit being made public, unless, of course, the city appeals the decision. Then it will be up to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. A spokesman for Mayor Tishaura O. Jones said the city had not yet decided whether to appeal.

Mensah ordered the city to file a public version of the full FIU Audit — with only victim addresses redacted — by March 6. Federal court rules, and the public interest, demand it, she wrote.

“Defendants’ general, conclusory assertions, unsupported by any evidence or citations to the record, cannot suffice to overcome the strong presumption of public access to this record. Defendants have not pointed to any particular criminal investigation that would be compromised by the release of the FIU Audit, nor is it apparent to the Court after careful review of the document how its release could compromise any particular criminal investigation,� Mensah wrote. “The document at issue bears on the question of whether the City properly investigated officer-involved shootings. The public interest in this claim and in how the Court evaluated it is very high.�