Lawsuit Charges Pawtucket Police Department Is Violating Open Records Law

A lawsuit filed by the Rhode Island chapter of the ACLU charges that the Pawtucket Police Department is violating the state's open records law by choosing not to release internal affairs reports on officer-initiated complaints.

During a news conference at the ACLU's Providence office Tuesday, RI executive director Steven Brown and other open records advocates said the Pawtucket's department's stance violates the Access to Public Records Act (APRA).

"We consider this to be just the latest example of a continued attack on access to public records here in Rhode Island," said RI ACLU Executive Director Steven Brown. "The lawsuit that we filed .... demonstrates police departments continuing to inappropriately shield themselves from public scrutiny with no good reason whatsoever."

The lawsuit was filed in Superior Court on behalf of Dimitri Lyssikatos of Providence, part of The Rhode Island Accountability Project, which said it promotes transparency in law enforcement. In April, the ACLU said, the Pawtucket Police Department denied his request for two years of internally generated misconduct complaints, saying even if the records were redacted to protect the identities of police and other individuals, they were “personal individually-identifiable records" and would not shed light on "official acts and workings of government."

Read more: http://ripr.org/post/lawsuit-charges-pawtucket-police-department-violating-open-records-law