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Police lose track of 1,500 open records requests
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WASHINGTON (Map, News) - The District of Columbia police department allowed more than 1,500 open records requests to “slip through the cracks” — an unacceptable record that flies in the face of D.C.’s open government laws, a leading D.C. Council member said.
Phil Mendelson, D-at large, sent a letter to newly confirmed police Chief Cathy Lanier, demanding that her department account for its handling of Freedom of Information Act requests. According to the police department’s own records, officials lost track of some 1,500 requests in fiscal 2005 and 2006. The department replied to less than one out of every seven FOIA requests it received in those years, Mendelson’s letter states.
“It goes to the heart of open government,” Mendelson, chair of the council’s public safety committee, said in a phone interview. “If the police are not responding to FOIA requests, then the public is entitled to guess whatever reasons and to interpret the worst possible scenarios. Tha’'s not in the interest of the government.”
D.C.’s FOIA law is fairly liberal — but usually ignored, said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a watchdog group.
“I’m not saying that there's a conspiracy,” she said. “It could be just gross incompetence.”
Civil suits filed for FOIA violations cost D.C. taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. There are criminal penalties for interfering with a FOIA request, but officials in the attorney general’s office told The Examiner the office has never opened an investigation, let alone filed charges.
Police spokeswoman Traci Hughes said that Lanier is committed to opening her agency up to public scrutiny. She has ordered police department FOIA lawyer Ronald Harris to file weekly reports on how well he’s processing requests.
“Chief Lanier is all in favor of complying with D.C. law,” Hughes said. “If something is FOIA-able, it should be released.”
