Lawsuit seeks SJPD records
Bay Area News Group sues for release of files after months of negotiations
SAN JOSE >> The Bay Area News Group has sued the San Jose Police Department to force the release of dozens of files on officer misconduct and use of force, more than 18 months after a landmark transparency law required law enforcement across California to release such records.
The lawsuit comes after more than six months of negotiations — and even after Mayor Sam Liccardo’s insistence that police comply with the law, known as SB 1421. San Jose police have countered it will take years to review and release more than 80 files sought by the news organization. So far, they have released only six complete cases and partial records from 20 others.
“The records sought are of critical public importance in rebuilding the public’s trust in law enforcement, especially at this moment in history when the public’s attention is focused on police practices in a way that it never has been before,” attorney James Chadwick, who represents the news organization, wrote in the 26-page suit filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court.
Partnering with KQED News, this news organization has filed hundreds of public records requests statewide under SB 1421, which for the first time opened long-secret personnel records that detail police using lethal force, or committing sexual misconduct or dishonesty.
Frank Pine, the Bay Area News Group’s executive editor, said the city of San Jose left the news organization no choice but to file this lawsuit.
“We have been negotiating with the Police Department and City Attorney’s Office since last year and we have made very little progress, with the city refusing even to commit to a timeline for when it would release requested records,” Pine said. “The law, however, is clear, and the taxpayers of San Jose deserve better. They deserve a government that is accountable, responsive, and responsible.”
The news organization filed the suit on Friday, but because the coronavirus has affected court procedures, the filing wasn’t confirmed until Wednesday morning.
San Jose City Attorney Richard Doyle said on Tuesday he had not yet seen the suit but
that it was “too bad” negotiations didn’t lead to a compromise to avoid a court fight. “We have diligently been working to identify records to be released,” he wrote in an email. “It has been slow, and we have added more staff to that effort.”
Late last week, Liccardo stepped into the matter, saying he would attempt to force the release of the records through the city public information officer. But the mayor later acknowledged he did not have the power to do so under the city charter. On Tuesday, Liccardo said the city manager is trying to get some of the documents released within 30 days.
San Jose police have estimated the department has at least 86 cases, mostly shootings, covering the 2014-2019 scope of the request.
At one point police claimed it would take four years to process them all, citing the need to review the records and redact witness names and other information they say is sensitive to be made public, such as home addresses and phone numbers. They later revised the estimate to two years.
One public records advocate likened obtaining the records from San Jose to trying to secure information from the most clandestine corners of government.
“Four years is CIA-level delay and makes no sense here,” said David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, a pro-transparency group.
Although it is one of the poorer performers in the state, San Jose is not the only department lagging in the release of records under SB 1421. KQED News sued the California Highway Patrol in May over its failure to release records, and Oakland and San Francisco have been slow to release records. The Los Angeles Times sued the L.A. County Sheriff in June over the slow release of records as well.
SB 1421’s author, Sen Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, has already introduced new legislation, SB 776, to broaden the types of records police are required to release and put fines in place for recalcitrant departments.
Records released by the hundreds of police departments that are following the law show officers fired for sexual misconduct, stealing, and tipping off gang members about police activity. One officer who was fired by Newark police for lying in three separate police reports ended up teaching criminology classes at Cal State East Bay. Another, fired by the Alameda County Sheriff for lying, was later hired as a police officer in Pinole, a city in Contra Costa County.