Once again, Louisville Metro Police Department finds itself at the center of a records access dispute.
On June 24, the family of Shelby Gazaway appealed LMPD's denial of their request for all records relating to the investigation into Gazaway's death to the Jefferson Circuit Court.
Gazaway was killed by two LMPD officers as he was leaving a Portland neighborhood Kroger on November 7, 2019.
In late May, an unnamed attorney for the family filed an open records request for all video footage; the officers' training, employment, and disciplinary files; evidence logs; requests for and results of forensic testing of evidence; and witness statements.
To date, LMPD has only released body cam video of the shooting.
The WAVE TV story linked below is short on details. It is unclear what, if any, statutory bases for denying or delaying Gazaway's family access to the requested records from the November 2019 shooting LMPD invokes.
It is therefore difficult to assess whether LMPD's denial was legally justified in whole or in part.
But a few things are immediately apparent:
• LMPD has yet to familiarize itself with its statutory duties under the open records law as construed by the Kentucky Supreme Court in City of Fort Thomas v Cincinnati Enquirer.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=15507555168963712886&q=cit…
Like the City of Fort Thomas in the referenced case, it appears that LMPD "has not yet made any attempt to identify non-exempt records in its file (except for video it has already disclosed), and it assuredly has not made any attempt to identify categories of records the particular nature of which renders them exempt. The law enforcement exemption [upon which LMPD presumably relied] cannot be invoked without at least that minimum degree of factual justification."
• The culture of secrecy is so firmly embedded at LMPD that it continues to ignore its statutory duties at a time when it is under intense public scrutiny following the deaths of Breonna Taylor and David McAtee.
• And finally, LMPD's claims of a heightened commitment to transparency ring hollow in the face of open records requesters forced to turn to the courts for the records to which they are entitled.
The open records laws establish a process that includes clearly defined statutory rights and duties as well as firm deadlines. In the absence of at least a modicum of good faith on the part of the agency responding to a request, these laws are subverted.
https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/statutes/statute.aspx?id=23065
https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/statutes/statute.aspx?id=23066
LMPD seems to have mastered the art of subverting the open records laws, driving aggrieved requesters to the Office of the Attorney General or, in this case, to the courts in large numbers.
