PUBLIC RECORDS Some police in Ohio don't follow the law

The information policy in some police departments was found to be arbitrary.
By ANDALE GROSS
AKRON BEACON JOURNAL
AKRON -- The people who enforce the laws in Ohio don't always abide by the law when it comes to answering public record requests.
In a recent statewide audit conducted by more than 90 press representatives, police departments in Ohio's 88 counties granted requests for incident reports the same or next day 60 percent of the time.
The rest of the time, officers gave various reasons for not releasing reports: They feared hurting their cases, wanted to protect victims and witnesses or simply longed to control what they considered "their" information. About 12 percent of the time, police incorrectly said the incident reports were not public records.
"I really feel sorry for the average citizen who doesn't know how to play the game," said auditor and Dayton Daily News reporter Kristin McAllister.
McAllister asked to see Dayton police reports from the last completed shift, but she was told the reports were stored in a computer not accessible to the public.
"I left there empty-handed and frustrated," she said.
What made difference
Emily Weidenhamer, a copy editor with The (Canton) Repository and former intern on the copy desk at The Vindicator, also could not gain access to the most recently filed Canton police reports.
An officer at the information desk told her he couldn't hand over the records to "someone just coming off the streets." He said she could wait a few days and check back with the police record room.
It wasn't until Weidenhamer revealed she was a reporter that the officer showed her the reports. He wouldn't make her copies, though -- a violation of state law.
Some police departments made reports readily available.
An Akron Beacon Journal copy editor was allowed to look through Akron police department reports from the last completed shift at the information desk and didn't have to identify herself.
A Columbus Dispatch reporter wasn't offered paper copies by Columbus police but was told she could look up the information on the Internet.
The reports generally are updated daily and include most of the information supplied on the written version of the records, said Columbus police spokeswoman Sherry Mercurio.
Some departments kept daily logs of police calls but lacked a file of reports detailing the incidents that prompted those calls. A Plain Dealer reporter seeking records in Painesville was given a police log and told it was an incident report.
Some departments blacked out information on reports they released.
Not part of the law
A reporter from The (Toledo) Blade seeking police reports in Napoleon was told she would have to wait several hours to get reports while an officer blacked out names of juveniles and uncharged suspects.
The public records law has no provision that allows police to withhold those names, said Akron Beacon Journal attorney Karen Lefton.
Some departments wouldn't give records without a written request -- a requirement the law doesn't allow.
A Sandusky Register librarian asking for reports in Norwalk was told she couldn't receive them without writing to the police chief.
In Georgetown, a village near Cincinnati, a reporter seeking a police report was sent to the office of Police Chief Buddy Coburn. The reports she was looking for were in the chief's computer.
"The chief sat at his computer and I looked over his shoulder," said Jennifer Edwards, a reporter for The Cincinnati Enquirer.
As the chief scrolled through the records, Edwards pointed out what she was interested in copying.
"Everyone was really nice, but it's a small town and people don't ask for reports a lot," Edwards said. "I think they were wanting to know who I was and what I wanted the records for."
Coburn said he figured Edwards was testing him.
"This is the first time I've had a reporter who was that overbearing," Coburn said. "We try to accommodate anyone who comes into this place."
When a person requests multiple reports, he said, they are directed to him or another officer and shown the reports on computer so no investigative information is revealed.
What chief said
"Because there is information in there that isn't public record, we pull up on the computer screen what you can see," Coburn said. "Statements from victims are in there. That's not public record."
Coburn said his policy on releasing reports does not make it more difficult to obtain information.
"People should have access to a certain amount of information," he said. "They have a right to that. As a law enforcement agency, I think we have a liability and responsibility to protect people's information also.
"A person's right to know is important. However, it shouldn't supersede your right to privacy."
In some cases, the search for information was expensive. A reporter from The Vindicator seeking police records in Lisbon had to pay $5 for a single page.
The law states that copying charges should go only toward covering the cost of paper and other materials, said Frank Deaner, president of the Ohio Coalition for Open Government, a public records advocacy group that initiated the audit.
"The spirit of the law is such that it should be material costs," Deaner said. "A lot of offices get deliberately vague in how they calculate actual costs and whether they include portions of salaries of people responsible for the records."
Departments with higher copying charges say their fees are reasonable considering all of the materials used and the staff time needed to comply with record requests.