CJR Debate: What Should Remain Private in a World where Everything could be Public?

The Columbia Journalism Review challenged the blogosphere to debate the question: What should remain private in a world where everything could be public?

The question stems from the Georgia House's unanimous passage of a bill that prohibits all but credentialed press members from viewing crime scene photos. Even the press, though, cannot remove or copy the photos and must view them under the supervision of a Georgia Bureau of Investigations records custodian. Legislators moved to pass the bill after a Hustler true-crime writer made an open records request to view the autopsy report and crime scene photographs of 24 year-old Meredith Emerson, who was murdered while hiking near the Appalachian Trail in 2008. The photos are said to depict Emerson's nude, decapitated body.

The Columbia Journalism Review argues the issues raised by the crime scene photograph requests should be made on a case-by-case basis.

To join the debate, click here or post a comment to our blog.

Investigative Records into Six-Year-Old's Suicide Withheld

The Yamhill County, Oregon, district attorney denied access to records of a police investigation into the death of a 6-year-old girl. The medical examiner concluded the child committed suicide, while the police detectives believed the death was an accident. The district attorney said there was no evidence of abuse or foul play.

The McMinnville Police Department refused to release the investigation documents on grounds that the public records law allows documents to be withheld if releasing them would be a "highly offensive" invasion. District Attorney Brad Berry refused to release the documents on grounds that the public interest fails to outweigh the invasion of personal privacy to the family of Samantha Kuberski.

State Department of Human Services officials say the girl is thought to be the youngest person to ever commit suicide in Oregon.

For details of how the child died, click here.

Police Officer Pulls Gun on Complainant Inside Police Station

WTAE Channel 4 obtained photos taken minutes after a Blairsville, Pennsylvania police officer pulled a gun on a man inside the police station while making a complaint against his landlord. Officer Janelle Lydic said Christopher Hall became enraged when she tried to escort him out of the police station.

Click here to see the photos obtained through the open records laws.

N.C. Judge Rules Police Dash-Cam Videos Not Public Records

North Carolina's Randolph County Superior Court Judge Brad Long ruled that police dash-cam videos are not a matter of public record. A lawyer representing the N.C. Press Association says the ruling highlights a gray area in the state's open records laws, where the law hasn't kept pace with technological developments.

The decision stems from the efforts of media groups to obtain two dash-cam videos that could have shed light on the August 2009 fatal shooting of 21-year old UNC fraternity president Courtland Smith by an Archdale police officer on Interstate 85 after Smith had called 911 asking for assistance. The 911 radio transmission and police traffic tapes were released. The 911 radio transmission contains Smith telling a dispatcher he was suicidal, driving drunk at speeds up to 100 mph and armed with a 9 mm pistol.

For more about case, click here.

Police Disciplinary Records Are Public Records in Columbia, Missouri

Boone County, Missouri Circuit Judge Kevin Crane declared the disciplinary records of a police officer open to the public under the city open records law adopted in July 2009 with the Citizens Police Review Board.

The ruling stems from a January 19 request made by The Columbia Tribune over an accusation that officers beat and shocked a man three times with a Taser during a December 2006 traffic stop. The Columbia police custodian of records located 97 pages of documents and eight disks of video responsive to the request. The Columbia Police Officers Association had tried to block the disclosure of disciplinary records.

For more, click here.

Video and Reports of Former Utah State Senator's DUI Arrest to be Public

The Utah State Records Committee will release the three-hour long dash-cam video of former Utah state Sen. Sheldon Killpack's arrest for allegedly driving drunk. They will also release the Utah Highway Patrol's incident report. However, the release of the public records could be delayed by up to a month as the records committee has five days to sign an order stating its decision, and the Department of Public Safety has 30 days within which to appeal to the district court.

The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Killpack was stopped at 12:17 a.m. on January 15 and failed field sobriety tests. After Killpack refused a Breathalyzer test, a blood draw showed his blood-alcohol content at 0.11, which is above the legal limit of 0.08. Killpack resigned his political office the next day, and was charged with DUI and failure to signal.

For more information, click here.

Illinois Police Officer Fell Asleep, Crashing Car Into Home's Foyer

Records released pursuant to a FOIA request reveal that a Wheaton, Illinois police officer fell asleep at the wheel of her squad car in September, causing her to crash the car through the front door of a house at 4 a.m.

Although no one was injured in the accident, the records show the officer said she fell asleep, but woke upon impact and believed she hit the gas pedal, accelerating through the front door.

The unnamed officer faces a possible suspension and disciplinary hearing after the city determines how much it will cost to repair the home. The officer's identity was redacted from records because of a clause in the contract between the union and the department.

Read more here.

Records of Alleged Sexual Assaults by a Former NC Police Officer Ordered to be Released

A Mecklenburg, NC judge has ordered the release of all 911 tapes and police radio communications associated with former Officer Marcus Jackson, who was arrested and fired after several women accused him of sexually assaulting them during traffic stops.

Superior Court Judge Richard Boner ruled the recordings are public records subject to disclosure, and did not find that the release of the recordings would jeopardize the state's prosecution of the former police officer or his right to a fair trial.

For more information, click here.

Judge Orders NYPD to Release Racial Data of Persons Under Police Gunfire from 1997 to 2006

Ruling on a case filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union in 2008, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Joan Madden ordered the NYPD to turn over the racial breakdown of all people shot at by police officers between 1997 and 2006.

The NYPD had agreed to release racial breakdown of those injured by police gunfire, but not data about those who were shot at but not hit.

For more information, click here.

High Speed Chase Video Obtained by FOIA Request

Watch this video obtained by 24 Hour News 8 through a FOIA request of a high-speed crash involving a Michigan State Police trooper on September 19 when the trooper was trying to pull over a speeding motorcyclist.

Most Complained-About Chicago Cops List Remains Closed

A list naming the 662 Chicago Police officers with 10 or more complaints filed against them will remain closed.

A journalist and 28 Chicago alderman sought access to the list compiled in connection with a 2004 suit against the Chicago Police Department.  Because that case has been settled, the federal appeals court ruled sua sponte that the journalist and alderman lacked standing to sue. 

The Fraternal Order of Police fought the release of names on the grounds that most complaints filed against police officers are eventually ruled unfounded.   The journalist and alderman counter that the court overlooked the public's interest in evaluating questionable police performance.

Get more here. 

New Jersey Use-of-Force Reports are Public Records

A New Jersey appeals court panel held that police use-of-force reports are public records, upholding a 2008 Superior Court ruling that West Milford must turn over the reports to Martin O'Shea, an open-records activist.  

The town sought exemption for the records under New Jersey's Public Records Act as "criminal investigatory records," but that argument was rejected.  

More here. 

Seattle Officers' Names Released to Citizen Accountability Group

The city of Seattle didn't violate its labor contract with the police guild when it released police disciplinary files to a citizen oversight panel, according to a state labor board ruling.

The Seattle Office of Professional Accountability Review Board reviews complaints against police officers and reports to the City Council regarding trends in misconduct cases or recommendations for training.  Until the City Council passed an ordinance in 2006, the review board only had access to files with the names of officers redacted.  

The Seattle Police Officer's Guild challenged the ordinance and the release of unredacted disciplinary files on the grounds that its contract required confidentiality of the officers' names. 

The Public Employment Relations Commission first ruled in favor of the police guild, but the city's appeal to the full three-member commission overturned that decision.  The guild could appeal to the Superior Court.

For more details, click here. 

Police car camera reveals cover-up

Video from a dashboard police camera revealed that Hollywood, Fla., police officer Dewey Pressley wrote a fake police report to cover up for another officer, the AP reported. Officer Joel Francisco rammed into the back of Alexandra Torrens-Vilas' car. Torrens-Vilas was charged with a DUI and traffic violation, but "the state attorney's office dropped the charges, saying the video raised questions about the officers' account of the crash." "I'm gonna tell you exactly how to word this so we can get him off the hook," Pressley says on the video. Later he remarks: "I don't like making things up ever because it's wrong but if I have to bend it a little to protect a cop I'm gonna."

Veteran Hollywood Police Officer Dewey Pressley said he hated lying. But if bending the truth a little would keep a fellow officer out of trouble, well, he was all for it.

A dashboard police camera video that surfaced recently showed Pressley chuckling as he wrote a fake police report, calling his creativity "a little Walt Disney" so another officer wouldn't get in trouble for rear-ending a 23-year-old woman's car in February.

Pressley and four others have been suspended with pay pending an investigation after video of the accident and the officers' attempt to cover it up became public last week, the latest Internet sensation in a line of unsettling police dashcam videos.

More here.

Group requests audio/videotapes concerning Gates' arrest

Judicial Watch filed a Massachusetts Public Records Request for any audiotapes or videotapes recorded before, during or after the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, according to Marketwire.

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has filed a Massachusetts Public Records Request with the Cambridge, MA, Police Department regarding the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates. Specifically, Judicial Watch seeks the following records:

Any audiotapes or videotapes recorded prior to, during, or after the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates on July 16, 2009.

On July 16, Sergeant James Crowley responded to a 911 phone call from a passerby reporting two men attempting to force open the door at Professor Gates' Harvard Square home. Professor Gates claims that he had just returned from a trip to China and his front door was jammed. He asked his driver to help him force it open.

More here.

Also, 911 Tape Raises Questions in Gates Case, NYTimes: "The woman who called 911 to report a possible breaking and entering at the home of Prof. Henry Louis Gates Jr. told the dispatcher that she had “no idea” if the two men she saw were breaking in and said that, in fact, they might live there." The recording was released by the Cambridge Police Department.

Appellate court says police internal affairs reports are public

The 4th District Appellate Court ruled that police internal affairs reports are public records, The State Journal-Register reported. The court said this is so no matter what the results of the investigation are. The ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed by a dentist who complained that a sheriff's deputy roughed him up for driving improperly during a kidney-stone attack. The dentist, Mark Gekas, didn't sue for excessive force but only after the department didn't turn over copies of the internal affairs report to him.

Police internal affairs files are public records, even if investigators conclude that accused officers did nothing wrong, a state appeals court has ruled.

The decision came Monday in a lawsuit filed by Springfield dentist Mark Gekas, who says he was roughed up by Sangamon County sheriff’s deputy John Gillette during a 2006 traffic stop.

Gekas sued Sheriff Neil Williamson after the department refused to give him copies of internal affairs reports. The department said the records are part of Gillette’s personnel file and that making them public would violate the deputy’s right to privacy.

More here.

R.I. considers withholding names of police shooters

The Rhode Island legislature proposed a bill that would protect the names of police officers involved in shootings until investigations are completed, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press reported. Opponents argue that keeping this information from the public would erode the community's trust in the police force. The Baltimore Police Department has already stopped releasing the names of police officers who injure or kill people.

The Rhode Island legislature is considering a bill that would block release of the names of police officers who are involved in shootings until after investigations are complete.

The bill to amend the state's public records law, H. 6165, was proposed in response to the fallout from a 2007 police shooting, according to the Providence Journal. Backers of the bill say it allows the officers time to deal with the situation and relieves them of public pressure. But detractors argue that police shootings ought to be treated no differently from other shootings, in which the police routinely release the names of the people responsible.

More here.

NFOIC Summit: Arizona FOI roundup

State-by-state updates at the 2009 NFOIC Summit: David Cuillier of the Society of Professional Journalists provided a summary of Arizona's FOI news.

• Police agencies are redacting names in police reports. Some just leave in the first name. They're redacting addresses. They use the excuse that they're protecting suspected criminals from identity theft.
• The legislature proposed a policy whereby if someone requested records and didn't pick them up, that person would be banned for life for requesting records.
• There is also a proposal to limit access to online court records to Arizona citizens.
  

NFOIC Summit: Wisconsin FOIA roundup

State-by-state updates at the 2009 NFOIC Summit: Christa Westerberg of Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council provided a summary of her state's FOI news.

• Wisconsin has seen good legal developments because of court cases that clarifies what constitutes good notice and when quasi-government organizations are subject to open meetings and records laws.
• The state has no consistent retention policy on any records. The attorney general says agencies must have a policy, but it doesn't matter what's in it.
• Legislators are working on a shield law for reporters' notebooks and sources.
• We're trying to model Minnesota's policy for police records.
• The state could use a better fees policy. Fees are now issued at the discretion of the custodian so there's a lot of arbitrariness.
• The state legislature is allowed to hammer out the budget in some private committees. Two provisions in the proposed budget include: the expungement of certain felon records and the elimination of designating official state newspapers so that required government notices could just go online without being published in print publications.
  

Number of 'unfounded' rape cases surprises Mo. police

The Southeast Missourian spent 10 months investigating rape cases that police determined had never happened or were "unfounded." The National Sexual Violence Resource Center found that 3 to 8 percent of rape reports turn out to be unfounded. Missouri is on the high end at 8 percent. "Police departments in larger Missouri cities like Springfield and St. Louis reflected much lower numbers of unfounded rape cases than Cape Girardeau," the Southeast Missourian found. In Cape Girardeau, 51 percent of the 53 reported rape cases from 2006-2008 were unfounded.

Fifty-three women have reported rapes in the last three years to Cape Girardeau police.

Police investigators determined that just over half of those rapes were "unfounded" or that they never occurred. That number is six times higher than what is reported across the state, according to the highway patrol.

Rape is one of the most difficult crimes to investigate. The evidence often boils down to one person's word against another's, making rapes difficult to prove in court.

More here.