There has been much made of the Incident Report, the lack of one, and then the production without any of the significant information, in the news lately.
But what people don't know is how it actually was obtained - and how, in fact, it came into existence ten days after the shooting.
This is the story of citizens taking action - and using the public records law - to force the police to produce this record. And it is the story of a never before used tactic in public records law - a "Global" Public Records Request.
On August 12th the ACLU requested the Incident Report of the St. Louis County Police Department which was dispatched to investigate the shooting by another agency - the Ferguson Police Department.
The next day, however, the St. Louis County Police Department denied the request - and claimed the record was exempt because of an ongoing investigation.
The ACLU - followed by the National Bar Association - filed a lawsuit. But the Police did not, as has been being reported in the media, produce the report in response to that lawsuit. Instead they were fully prepared to allow that process to drag out and thus delay the ultimate production of the record - until a court compelled them to produce it.
That's when the game was changed. On Sunday August 17th I emailed a public records request for that same document. But I addressed in that request the distinction between an Incident Report, which is a public record with no applicable exemption, and an Investigative Report, which comes after and upon an Incident Report, and is exempt - during the active investigation. It becomes public upon that investigation being completed.
I also notified the custodian, Lt. Burk, that if he played the same game with me that was played with the ACLU - that he would be violating his oath of office as well as knowingly violating the law - a Class A Misdemeanor.
The story is told here at Photography Is Not A Crime (PINAC) along with all of the relevant documents.
Also demonstrated in that story is how and why both the failure of the Ferguson Police Department and Officer Wilson to file that report and provide it - with a narrative statement by Wilson as to the facts and what he saw and did at the scene - violates both the Department's policies on reports and Missouri law - and why that same law was violated when the St. Louis County Police manufactured an Incident Report in response to this request, after denying what must be another to the ACLU ten days prior, and then released it trying to both deny the public its right to the information while technically complying with the request for a report.
What this amply demonstrates - is that both the Ferguson Police Department and the St. Louis County Department are willing to ignore the law to defend "one of their own". Showing a clear contempt both for the public they are supposed to serve and the laws they are sworn to enforce. When police deem themselves to be above the law, and are allowed to get away with it, there really is no law left - but the law of might makes right. And they have proven both with their unjustified shootings and their militaristic responses to protests - that they have that might - and believe that they are right.
See the article and read the documents themselves. It is both a triumph of the citizens - using the law to demand their rights to know and to hold officials to account; and a tragedy - of those officials ignoring the law, backed up by all the other officials - from the prosecutors to the courts - in an act of naked lawlessness.
While the pursuit of public records now continues into this matter - both to find out what happened the day of the shooting - and to find out how the Departments have conspired to cover up in defense of "one of their own" - what this story demonstrates, the lesson that need to be learned, is that citizens CAN take the law into their own hands - the public records law that is, which is meant to be in their hands and wielded as a check on abuses of government - and turn the tables, to where the officials - including law enforcement officials - become the lawbreakers. There is an untapped potential just waiting to be understood in these citizen-empowering laws - if we just learn about them and how to wield them effectively as part of our "arsenal" of weaponry - armed not with guns but with the law - to preserve and protect what we expect to be a free and democratic society.
3:35 PM PT: Just a heads up. By tomorrow I will have a follow up. But now that they were forced to produce "an" Incident Report - but created a "special" one just for this case that violates their practices, policies, and the law ...
They have CORNED themselves to be caught in this.
I have requested two key sets of records. And they are now claiming - rather than produce these:
1) There is a "State of Emergency" - and so they will not produce any records for at least TWO WEEKS.
AND
2) I have to provide $35,000 for another set.
They KNOW what is in what I have asked for - and what it means for them.
So tomorrow begins a new strategic approach - to get the citizens of this country (in masses - not just hundreds I hope - but thousands (and I need YOUR help to do it)) demanding these records.
More to come.
Tue Aug 26, 2014 at 7:10 AM PT: CALL FOR ACTION: If you are willing to file a request for public records - please email me at charliegrapski@pinac.org