More than two years after his fateful arrest, many of the details of Freddie Gray’s death and the precise roles each of the six officers who encountered him that day played in the events leading up to it remain mysterious. The Baltimore Police Department now has in its possession what may well be the most definitive account of what happened that day that will ever be produced — the fruit of more than a year of work by investigators from the Montgomery and Howard county police departments. Yet it’s entirely possible that we will never know what it says.

Department officials say they will not answer questions about the report, release it or discuss it because it is protected as a personnel record. It is possible that some elements of the investigation could become public if it results in a recommendation for punitive action of any sort — dismissal, demotion, reassignment, etc. — and the officer or officers involved request a trial board hearing. Such hearings are now open to the public (unless the chief thinks there is good cause to keep one closed). But even if that happens, we won’t necessarily get the full picture. Because none of the officers was present for the entire time between Gray’s arrest and his arrival, critically injured, at the Western District, no individual trial or disciplinary proceeding is able to present the totality of what happened.

And even if the report results in public trial board hearings, there’s reason to worry about whether the public would have much faith in the outcome. Although the consent decree between the city and the Department of Justice detailing post-Freddie Gray reforms calls for civilians — and not just fellow police officers — to sit on trial boards, that’s prohibited under the existing collective bargaining agreement between the city and the police union. Despite the Pugh administration’s attempts, it has thus far not resolved the issue through negotiations. Legislation to force the issue failed in this year’s General Assembly session, as have previous such efforts by Mayor Catherine Pugh when she was a state senator.

Prosecutors were unable to prove that the officers engaged in criminal conduct in the lead-up to Gray’s death, but the case that one or more of them failed to follow department policies should be more straightforward. Whether the failure to place Gray in a seat belt was criminal conduct or just a bad judgment call was an issue in some of the officers’ trials, for example, but given a departmental memo mandating the use of such restraints shortly before Gray’s arrest, the issues at stake in an administrative hearing should be much simpler.

It’s frankly mystifying that the Montgomery and Howard investigations dragged on as long as they did, and if they conclude that there is cause for disciplinary action, we could face lengthy additional delays as trial boards are convened and hear evidence. Commissioner Kevin Davis said during his confirmation hearing that discipline in the department should be “swift and certain.” This has been anything but, and it further strains the tenuous public trust in the department.

We understand that Mr. Davis faces legal constraints in what he can say about this or any other matter of internal discipline. But he is not powerless in this process. Police chiefs have the authority to mete out discipline beyond what a trial board recommends, and his predecessors have occasionally used it. After a police officer was caught on film berating a skateboarding teen at the Inner Harbor in 2007, a trial board recommended a brief suspension for his failure to write a report. Then-Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III disagreed and fired him, a decision subsequently upheld by the courts. City lawyers argued that the officer’s actions placed the department and the city in a bad light. Surely the same can be said for the officers in the Gray case.

Still, the Fraternal Order of Police attorney representing the officers predicted that the report would exonerate his clients and demonstrate that they had done nothing wrong. If so, they should have no objection to waiving their rights to keep it confidential. The Police Department may be prohibited from releasing the investigation, but the officers are not.

In the future, though, lawmakers need to consider the breadth of the exemptions for personnel records under state law. We appreciate the value of protecting the privacy of government workers, but such protections need to be balanced against the broader public interest. In this case, that balance is badly skewed.