Tale as old as time, tune as old as song, learning you were wrong…
I don’t usually name names in this blog…I always give the benefit of the doubt to the public body. But when it happens to me, I never hesitate to name names, so today the award goes to the Springfield, Mo., Police Department. A woman on their front desk desperately needs some sunshine law training.
I walk in last Thursday to request an incident report, and request the specific report by number. You can see her call it up on her computer screen and look at it, then she turns to me. “Your name is?” she asks.
Immediately I’m not a happy camper. I could tell her the report involves my son. I could tell her the report involves my client. Both are true and I know they would generate immediate cooperation. But I choose to do neither, because, as you can imagine, I am always incensed when I find a public governmental body flaunting the law and harassing private citizens for asking for a public record which they have every right to ask for. Nothing in the sunshine law allows a public body to ask the name of the person seeking the record! So I reply, “Oh, my name isn’t in it.”
You can immediately see her freeze up. “So then, why do you want it?” she asks. I can’t believe those words came out of her mouth! Wrong response again, sweetie. It doesn’t matter why I want it, because again, it’s a public record! So, feeling more and more the need to drive this point home, I frankly tell her, “Because I’m a member of the public and this is a public record.”
She is not going to back off. “It’s an ongoing investigation and I can’t release it to you,” she says. By now, I’ve decided it’s time to give this woman a lesson in the law. “I don’t want the investigative report. All I want is the incident report and it’s a public record,” I respond. I demand she talk to her supervisor. And she goes to get an officer.
Another woman comes out and also inspects the report. This spokesman for the department then again says to me “It’s under investigation and I can only give you the incident report.”
“That’s all I have asked for,” I respond, “and it’s a public record.” So then she hands it to me, at last. I ask if there’s a charge and they say no. I’d have given them a dime for the one-page report, if they’d insisted, but they spent more time arguing with me over whether I had a right to a public record than they did searching for this report.
Springfield is the third largest metropolitan area in the state. Its police department has an excellent website, with a wealth of information available. The department says it is committed to providing quality service to the community through “personal integrity, fairness, open communication and a helpful attitude.” I am sure it strives hard to achieve all of those things. But perhaps a little sunshine law training is in order for its front desk personnel, so that it doesn’t find itself violating the law on a regular basis.
Citizens shouldn’t have to enforce the law against the local law enforcement.