David Simon, the creator of the HBO cop TV series "The Wire" complains in the Washington Post about a new Baltimore police policy of not releasing names of cops who shoot people unless the cops feel the shooting was unjustified (to prevent retaliation, ostensibly—which, indeed, is easier in the Internet age of looking up stuff about people):

On Feb. 17, when a 29-year-old officer responded to a domestic dispute in East Baltimore, ended up fighting for her gun and ultimately shot an unarmed 61-year-old man named Joseph Alfonso Forrest, the Sun reported the incident, during which Forrest died, as a brief item. It did not name the officer, Traci McKissick, or a police sergeant who later arrived at the scene to aid her and who also shot the man.

It didn't identify the pair the next day, either, because the Sun ran no full story on the shooting, as if officers battling for their weapons and unarmed 61-year-old citizens dying by police gunfire are no longer the grist of city journalism. At which point, one old police reporter lost his mind and began making calls.

No, the police spokesman would not identify the officers, and for more than 24 hours he would provide no information on whether either one of them had ever been involved in similar incidents. And that's the rub, of course. Without a name, there's no way for anyone to evaluate an officer's performance independently, to gauge his or her effectiveness and competence, to know whether he or she has shot one person or 10.

It turns out that McKissick — who is described as physically diminutive — had had her gun taken from her once before. In 2005, police sources said, she was in the passenger seat of a suspect's car as the suspect, who had not been properly secured, began driving away from the scene. McKissick pulled her gun, the suspect grabbed for it and a shot was fired into the rear seat. Eventually, the suspect got the weapon and threw it out of the car; it was never recovered. Charges were dropped on the suspect, according to his defense attorney, Warren Brown, after Brown alleged in court that McKissick's supervisors had rewritten reports, tailoring and sanitizing her performance.

And so on Feb. 17, the same officer may have again drawn her weapon only to find herself again at risk of losing the gun. The shooting may be good and legally justified, and perhaps McKissick has sufficient training and is a capable street officer. But in the new world of Baltimore, where officers who take life are no longer named or subject to public scrutiny, who can know?

Of course, my attention was diverted away from Mr. Simon's no doubt worthy crusade to a question that just doesn't get asked much these days: Why do we have "diminutive" lady cops anyway?

Officer McKissick is courageous — the previous time she lost control of her gun, it was after jumping into a car trying to speed away from an arrest — but she apparently doesn't have the upper body strength to get her out of situations her bravery gets her into without shots getting fired.

As a general proposition, when a 29-year-old cop is so weak that she gets herself put into a headlock by a 61-year-old man, bad stuff is likely to ensue.