Supplemental' info unreleased

BY JIM HOUSTON
Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, 09/04/07

Don't look for the Columbus Police Department to change its policy any time soon on releasing "supplemental reports" of police investigations.

Chief Ricky Boren said the department's decision to no longer file reports using the "Miscellaneous Incident" heading will have no bearing on its nondisclosure of supplemental reports while cases remain active.

The department will continue to rely on the legal advice of the city's attorneys and the Georgia Attorney General to withhold from public disclosure supplemental reports that are part of an ongoing investigation, said Boren. When a case has been officially closed, those reports will become public records subject to release, he said.

The separation of information from the initial incident reports from that included on a supplemental report not available for public perusal can be a matter the public should be concerned about, said Atlanta attorney Walter H. Bush, who represents the Ledger-Enquirer. Failure to properly disclose on initial incident reports the nature of alleged incidents police are investigating shields from public view matters of potential public interest, he said.

"The law gives them a perfectly legitimate way to deal with this -- they block the name of the person out of the incident report," Bush said. "But don't hide from the public, for example, that a sexual assault is reported to have occurred at that time and that place."

A report of an alleged rape or sexual assault that does not disclose such an allegation on the portion of the report available for public inspection, for example, doesn't allow residents to know that such activity is even alleged to have occurred in their community, he said.

Bush also said reports that show a "continuous pattern of police involvement" should not be separated into two reports -- one for public view and another, written at the same time by the same officer, as a "Supplemental Report" that is not disclosed to the public.

No specifications

Augusta attorney David E. Hudson, who represents the Georgia Press Association, said Georgia's Open Records Act does not specify what must be included by law enforcement in an initial incident report. There is potential for "playing games" by putting significant information in supplement reports that are not immediately available to the public, although police could declare that information part of an ongoing criminal investigation, he said.

"If it ever came to a showdown, I think a strong case could be made to convince a court that information like names, witnesses, and general allegations should be in the initial report and if they are put in a supplemental report, then that portion of the supplemental report should be made public," Hudson said.

Georgia First Amendment Foundation Executive Director Hollie Manheimer said police reports are among the most frequently sought documents under Georgia's Open Records Act.

"The public is particularly interested in police records, because information creates security," Manheimer said. "The more a community knows about the crime or danger in its neighborhoods, the better it can protect itself."

Whether a report is an initial incident report or a supplemental report, it is subject to public disclosure under the Open Records Act, said Manheimer, who helped write the manual "Georgia Law Enforcement and the Open Records Act" designed to advise officers of the law's requirements.

"The language in the book we specifically chose is as follows: 'Initial incident and police arrest reports are subject to the Act's disclosure requirements, regardless of whether they are part of an active investigation. Additionally, any report, whether entitled a 'supplemental report,' 'narrative report' or similar document name that is produced as part of an initial incident report or can be characterized as such, is likewise to be disclosed.' "

Reprinted with permission from the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, 09/04/07.