Is public access to Baltimore’s Gun Offender Registry helping — or hurting?

The facts in the firing last week of accountant Dana Hayes Jr. — nine days after he took a job as chief of fiscal services for the Baltimore Police Department — are, in a word, fuzzy. Police Commissioner Michael Harrison says a background check failed to turn up past gun charges, despite Mr. Hayes being listed on the city’s public Gun Offender Registry, which is maintained by the commissioner. The check also failed to catch that Mr. Hayes is currently a “person of interest” in a murder (he has not been named a suspect). Mr. Hayes says the murder victim was his stepfather, and, although he’s been questioned about the man’s death, he had nothing to do with it.