Audit tests public records availability at police departments

Nov. 28, 2007 (KGO) (KGO) -- Police departments in California are required under the law to make all sorts of official records available to the public, but that doesn't always happen.

Results are out today from a state-wide audit designed to test how good law enforcement agencies are at releasing records to the public. The ABC7 News I-Team helped check up on local police departments, and find out which Bay Area agencies made the grade.

Today's report is actually a follow-up to an audit we worked on a year ago. Most agencies failed then. This time, the results are better, but they're still far from perfect.

"We still have a large number of agencies that are failing to understand the basic principles of the California Public Records Act," said Emily Francke from CalAware.

CalAware is the open records group that runs the annual audit, to test whether law enforcement agencies are following the law themselves and releasing public records to the public, the way they're supposed to.

"The smaller departments, with both less crime, fewer arrests and fewer personnel seem to do much better than the large departments," said Terry Francke from CalAware.

Some smaller police departments, such as El Cerrito, scored an A-plus in the latest audit.

"There's a significant amount of information that they're entitled to, just based on being a member of the public," said Commander Michael Regan from El Cerrito Police.

Michael Regan's in charge of records there. He says the public is entitled to a lot of the information contained in crime reports.

"Any person can come in and ask for information that relates to the date and time of the incident, the rough surroundings of what took place during the incident, the name of the victim, the name of the suspect," said Cmdr. Regan.

And that's exactly what volunteer auditors -- including the I-Team did. We walked into CHP, police and sheriff's offices across the state, asked for information about recent burglaries and rated each agency on their response.

Auditor Earl Hamlin says the Brentwood Police Department did the right thing.

"They didn't ask anything about who I was or anything, they just went and got me a log and I'd say that took less than 30 seconds," said volunteer auditor Earl Hamlin.

His wife, bonnie, got a different response from Concord Police.

"I went up to the window and said that I was interested in finding out something about a particular burglary. She said, why do you want to know?" said volunteer auditor Bonnie Hamlin.

"It's intimidating. I mean, people need to know that going into a police department is an intimidating experience," said Helen Hutchinson from the Oakland Women's League of Voters.

Helen Hutchison got a similar treatment at the Livermore Police Department.

"They said that I needed to be a resident of the city before they could tell me more about the crime, which surprised me," said Hutchinson.

It surprised her, because it's wrong. The law is clear -- you don't have to live in a city to get information about a crime in the area.

Here in the Bay Area, several police departments scored A-pluses. Along with El Cerrito, Half Moon Bay and Santa Rosa both got top marks.

Not all smaller police departments scored well, though. Concord got a C-minus, Sunnyvale got a D, and San Mateo an F.

And for the biggest police departments, Oakland scored an A-minus, San Jose got a D and the San Francisco Police did the worst, with an F.

CalAware's Emily Francke conducted the San Francisco audit herself.

"I was bounced around from counter to counter, from building to building, from one end of the city to the other. It took me two hours and in the end, I didn't get anything," said Emily Francke from CalAware.

Chief Heather Fong declined to be interviewed. When we saw her at the Hall of Justice on Wednesday, her spokesman says the department doesn't deserve an F.

"We don't believe that the score that SFPD received is indicative of most people's experience when they request information," said Sgt. Steve Mannina from San Francisco Police.

Scores were mixed among the sheriff's departments: Contra Costa County got an A-plus, San Mateo got a C-minus, and the Santa Clara County Sheriff got a D. CalAware didn't include the Alameda and San Francisco Sheriff's Departments in this audit.

El Ceritto Police Commander Regan says, keeping the public informed is an important part of police work.

"We are doing the public's work, and so they have every right to know what it is we're doing," said Cmdr. Regan.

To read more on CalAware's audit, visit www.calaware.org

Get more I-Team »

• Email
• Print
• Report a typo
•