Baltimore Police Officer Traci L. McKissick changed her story on the witness stand and a man accused of trying to wrest away her gun during an altercation that left another man dead goes free.

This is a big deal in and of itself, but it's more important because back in February city police officials tried to withhold her name from the public citing a new policy of not revealing the identities of officers who shoot their weapons. McKissick and another officer who fired during the fight that killed the suspect's 61-year-old uncle, Joseph Forrest (seen above in a picture held by his sister, Greta, in a photo taken by The Sun's Jed Kirschbaum).

Police had the charged Forrest's nephew, also named Joseph Forrest, with stepping on McKissick's hand and trying to take away her gun. One officer shot the elder Forrest in the chest and McKissick unloaded her service weapon into the man's right thigh.

Police initially refused to name the officers, then blacked McKissick's name from a public police report on a previous shooting she had in 1995 when a suspect stole her weapon. The Sun obtained the name anyway and that led us to documents that countered what police had first told us about McKissick's encounter back in 1995 (instead of being dragged by a vehicle, as police told us, the reports showed she jumped into a car and had her gun stolen by the driver).

Now, on Tuesday, prosecutors were forced to drop charges against the younger Forrest because McKissick, who had identified Forrest as the man who stepped on her, testified in court that the person who tried to get her gun was a "mystery man."

That's quite different from a steadfast identification, an identification that helped a judge back in February order the younger Forrest held in jail without bail until his trial.

The policy of not naming cops who shoot is still being reviewed (it's now been six months) and while some identities of officers have been made public, others such as the most recent shooting of a man during a burglary in Northwest Baltimore have not.

I hope this incident with McKissick shows the department how withholding basic information such as identities prompts unnecessary questions and skepticism, and now that the officer in question has changed her story under oath, that should be taken into account as police investigate the fatal shooting of the elder Forrest.