Freedom of Information? See you in Court
Big Organizations Attract Lawsuits over Difficult Public-Records Access

by Doug Collins
The Free Press


"I used to be able to get documents like this in El Paso," John Hoffman remembers about how he started his practice of collecting documented complaints against police officers. "In Texas, you can get the names. Here they black them out." Hoffman had dreamed of moving to Seattle and setting up an A to Z file of officer names, a file which people could consult to see what complaints had been received against each officer. It wasn't as easy as he had expected. First of all, all the officer names were blacked out by the Seattle Police Department (SPD). Secondly, Hoffman wasn't receiving the SPD documents in the timely manner he had been accustomed to in Texas.

Hoffman and co-plaintiff Christopher Gilmore are now sueing the City of Seattle over public-records access issues at the SPD.

Meanwhile, the Progressive Animal Welfare Society (PAWS), recently won a similar case against the University of Washington. According to Mitchell Fox of PAWS, UW administrators are "nice, clean citizens who have refused to comply with the law....We've been disappointed for a decade and a half in their ability to follow the law." PAWS has beat UW in court three times in recent years over illegally closed meetings and withheld records regarding animal experimentation. Last year, UW was ordered by the Washington State Supreme Court to release records to PAWS, to pay PAWS' attorney fees, and to pay PAWS $15,000 for its delay in releasing the documents. The payment comes from a clause in state sunshine law RCW42.17 which says that an offender of public-records access must pay $5 to $100 per day of delay in releasing documents to those who requested them.

John Hoffman... could be an instant
rich man if he wins this case.
At that per-day rate, John Hoffman, who says he has still not received some of the police records he requested some four years ago, could be an instant rich man if he wins his case. He claims that at least 136 documents he requested, internal investigation complaints from the early 1990s, were presumably trashed by the SPD as part of their routine deletion of such files after they are three years old. The problem is that he had already requested them before they were destroyed, in which case the SPD could be liable. Hoffman received some documents that he requested, but noticed by their record numbers that there were large gaps of missing documents. Police spokesperson Carmen Best declined to comment on the lawsuit, citing an SPD policy to not answer questions concerning ongoing litigation.

Hoffman's lawsuit also has another main component. It charges that the SPD has illegally allowed unequal access to police incident reports. The SPD has operated a select "media room" for reporters from mainstream news establishment to view records of the last 72 hours of police activity. Members of the general public were not allowed in this room. State law, however, says that there must be equal access to all persons. Hoffman and co-plaintiff Gilmore may have already won this part of their case before they even go to court. According to police spokesperson Best, the SPD now operates a new Public Review Board, in which "any copies that used to be for the press are now for everybody in the public to view."

Although the public may view these documents, getting copies is another matter. In the past, there have also been unequal charges for copies of incident reports. Mainstream reporters have only been charged 15 cents a copy for an incident report, but the actual victim of the incident was charged $8 to get a copy of the same report. Hoffman and Gilmore contend that state law demands a 15-cent charge for all, and that a city law allowing higher fees is not valid.

John Hoffman says he won't be satisfied until every member of the public is given the same service at the SPD "as a super-suck-up reporter from KING 5" is given.



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Contents this page were published in the July/August, 1997 edition of the Washington Free Press.
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