Credit: Wikimedia Commons via Picryl.com
Public Domain
By Kapish Kalita
FRESNO, CA – The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California is suing the city of Fresno over its failure to provide public records about police dogs, claiming the city failed to comply with the state’s Public Records Act, according to Courthouse News Service.
The story noted the records were needed to indicate “disfiguring injuries and deaths” caused by police dogs, and specifically, as the ACLU said in its petition, “because of growing concern about the city’s disproportionate” use of dog against “communities of color.”
The ACLU further noted in its petition, “‘In 2021, injuries caused by police canines accounted for nearly 12 percent of police use-of-force cases that resulted in severe injuries or death,” with “many of these attacks…perpetrated against people who are unarmed, and many of them occur accidentally when police officers lose control of their dogs.”
These “accidental attacks have happened in Fresno, with canines biting a bystander, a child, and a police sergeant,” according to the ACLU, as quoted in Courthouse News.
In March 2023, added Courthouse News, the ACLU “filed a Public Records Act request with Fresno seeking documents about police dog use of force…Specifically request(ing) use-of-force forms or reports involving police canines, records and reports involving bites and injuries, and records about police dogs that led to death or serious bodily injury, unreasonable force, and dishonestly about any police canine incident.”
This led to a “back-and-forth began over the following months, which led to the ACLU receiving redacted documents on June 2, 2023…76 use-of-force reports from 2019 to 2022 but none from 2021.”
Courthouse News reported the ACLU said, “Fresno also redacted entire pages of narrative information from the K9 use-of-force reports and accidental bite reports it did produce” with the documents “lack(ing) details about the various incidents, injuries received, deputies involved and any disciplinary actions” and a “majority of the reports hav(ing) significant redactions.”
According to the ACLU, “Fresno cited attorney-client privilege, attorney work product, right to privacy, unwarranted invasion of privacy, and the investigatory records exemption as reasons for the redactions.
Courthouse News reported the city in December stated it considered the Public Records Act request closed, with the ACLU charging “the city is determined to ignore the obligations it has under the Public Records Act unless forced in court to comply.”
The ACLU, said Courthouse News, also asserted, “Fresno cannot demonstrate that the outstanding responsive records are exempt under express provisions of the (Public Records Act), or any authority, or that on the facts of this particular case, the public interest served by nondisclosure of the records outweighs the public interest served by disclosure.”
According to the article, the Public Records Act of 1968 “changed in 2018, when the Legislature included in the act use-of-force by a peace officer that led to death or great bodily injury” with those “documents fall(ing) under the Public Records Act, even if they were created before the change in the law, if the request was filed after Jan. 1, 2019.”
