Becerra sued over failure to release police records

SACRAMENTO — A free speech organization is suing California Attorney General Xavier Becerra over his office’s failure to release internal police records.

The San Rafael-based First Amendment Coalition sued Becerra’s office in San Francisco Superior Court on Thursday after the attorney general did not turn over records related to investigations of shootings or confirmed cases of sexual assault by officers. A law passed last year opened such records to the public following decades of secrecy surrounding internal law enforcement investigations.

But numerous police unions around the state have sued in local courts, arguing that the new law should not unseal records of incidents that occurred prior to its taking effect on Jan. 1. Becerra cited those ongoing cases in declining to turn over the records, saying that the public interest in protecting officer privacy outweighs transparency until the courts decide the issue.

The law’s author, Democratic state Sen. Nancy Skinner of Berkeley, has said that the Legislature intended to make public all qualifying records in a department’s possession, no matter when an incident occurred.

The Los Angeles Times is one of multiple media organizations around the state that have filed legal briefs urging courts to rule against the unions’ lawsuits. A Contra Costa County Superior Court judge ruled last week that departments must release older records. But this week, a judge in Ventura County granted a preliminary injunction blocking the release of such records in a separate case.