This, literally, defies logic.

Not to mention precedent.

Kentucky's courts have consistently recognized that although law enforcement agencies may make *limited* redactions to protect privacy interests under a *limited* number of circumstances — for example, personal identifiers of victims of sexual offenses — , "police incident reports are matters of public interest and are public records. 93-ORD-42, citing, OAG 76-443. As a result, *the public should be allowed to scrutinize the police to ensure they are complying with their statutory duties."*

Just one guess what agency opposed release of incident reports in the quoted case.

It was, in fact, the predecessor to the Louisville Metro Police Department: the City of Louisville Police Department.

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ky-court-of-appeals/1244250.html

The court gave deference to the privacy interests implicated by disclosure of unredacted incident reports in this narrow factual context but gave full throated endorsement to the public's right "to scrutinize the police to ensure they are complying with their statutory duties."

A second opinion issued by the courts reaffirmed the public's right to incident reports with minimal redactions aimed at protecting privacy in a narrow factual context.

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ky-supreme-court/1653242.html

Disclosure of a heavily redacted, incomplete incident report precludes this right.

Given the presence of redactions, the equivalent of partial denial of the Courier Journal's open records request, the Attorney General is statutorily obligated to proceed with his review of the newspaper's open records appeal.

Sadly, there is little the Attorney General can do to address the omitted (versus redacted) material. He cannot compel the LMPD to furnish information that was never entered or otherwise order the creation of a record.

And, thus, the most telling and critical part of the narrative (normally available without redaction), remains shrouded in secrecy.

Decidedly bad optics for an agency that has made an open commitment to transparency in recent days (lip service) and been directly admonished by the courts in the past to make incident reports publicly accessible.

As other cities and states take giant steps forward in expanding transparency, Louisville takes yet another step back.