43
Blood-alcohol in internal affairs investigation sought
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
The Vindicator and its news partner, 21 WFMJ-TV, are asking to see results of a blood-alcohol test done on the relative of a city police officer.
The media outlets filed a public records request Thursday with the police department’s Internal Affairs Division to see if results on the machine are available for Joseph K. Slattery, 54, of Youngstown.
Records indicate that Slattery was in the room where the test is administered, but no result was entered in the log kept for the machine.
Slattery was given a citation for open container and running a red light after he was pulled over about 5:30 p.m. last Friday for failing to stop at a red light at Mahoning Avenue and Steel Street. He had an open can of beer in his hand when he was pulled over.
Police department sources have said that Slattery should have been arrested or charged with driving while impaired. Instead, he was given the two citations and released with a court date.
Internal affairs is investigating to see if preferential treatment was given.
A police report on the incident shows no record of a test for blood-alcohol content, commonly known as a BAC test, although Slattery’s name is on the log for the machine.
Also, on dispatch tapes of the traffic stop, an officer asks for someone certified to run the machine and also says he is taking a person to the station to be tested.
Thursday, the media partners asked for any camera footage that may show Slattery being taken into the police department onto the second floor where the BAC machine is located, as well as officers who were with him. Also sought is a copy of the results from the test, if it was given; and a copy of the logbook kept for the BAC machine.
The request was forwarded to the city’s law department, where Deputy Law Director Anthony Donofrio answered in an email that the records being sought are not eligible to be released because of an ongoing internal affairs investigation.
Donofrio answered that the records being sought will be available once the investigation is completed.
David Marburger, an attorney who specializes in public records law and also represents the newspaper and television station, told Donofrio in an email that the results of the BAC test, if one was given, are public record — and they do not lose that status if they are part of an investigation.
“Government records that were available to the public before the internal affairs investigation do not lose that public record status merely because investigators assemble them in the course of investigating,” Marburger wrote to Donofrio. “The exemption for specific investigatory work product does not apply.”
Marburger asked the city to decide by this afternoon if it will grant the request by the newspaper and the television station.