Request By:
Mr. David W. Brown
Associate Managing Editor for News
The Kentucky Post
421 Madison Avenue
Covington, Kentucky 41011
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Carl Miller, Assistant Attorney General
You have requested an opinion of the Attorney General as to whether the records of a police department which are referred to as the "police blotter" or "incident reports" are open to public inspection under Kentucky's Open Records Law.
In your letter you refer to the decision of the Kentucky Court of Appeals (now Supreme Court) in 1974 in the case City of St. Matthews v. The Voice of St. Matthews, Inc., Ky., 519 S.W.2d 811. In that case it was held that a citizen is not required to show an interest such as would enable a person to maintain or defend a law suit as a prerequisite to his right to inspect a public record; that newspapers have the same right to inspect public records as members of the general public, and that all records maintained by state, county or municipal government as evidence of the manner in which business has been conducted by governmental units are public records and open to public inspection.
Since the above mentioned court decision the Kentucky General Assembly enacted the Kentucky Open Records Law which is codified as KRS 61.870. The Open Records Law put into statute form the holding of the Court in the St. Matthews case. A police department is a public agency under the law, and therefore all of its records are subject to public inspection by any citizen including a newspaper reporter, unless expressly exempted by the law. One exemption which applies to some police department records is found in KRS 61.878(1)(f) which reads as follows:
"(f) Records of law enforcement agencies involved in administrative adjudication that were compiled in the process of detecting and investigating statutory or regulatory violations if the disclosure of the information would harm the agency by revealing the identity of informants not otherwise known or by premature release of information to be used in a prospective law enforcement action or administrative adjudication. Unless exempted by other provisions of this Act, public records exempted under this provision shall be open after enforcement action is completed or a decision is made to take no action. Provided, however that the exemptions provided by this subsection shall not be used by the custodian of the records to delay or impede the exercise of rights granted by this Act."
It is our opinion that generally the "police blotter" or police "incident report" is not exempt from public inspection. If a police department feels it necessary to withhold certain items from public inspection in order to protect a police officer or an informant, it may do so under KRS 17.150 but the burden is upon the custodian to justify the refusal of inspection with specificity. KRS 17.150(3). Otherwise, records of police departments showing complaints received from citizens and other incidences occurring in its daily operation are open to public inspection.