LOS ANGELES (CNS) – The ACLU of Southern California filed a legal action today seeking access to use-of-force and other records from the Inglewood Police Department as well as a temporary restraining order preventing any potentially relevant records from being destroyed.
The Los Angeles Superior Court petition seeks the information under the California Public Records Act and Senate Bill 1421, which was enacted in 2018 by the Legislature and enables the public to access peace officer records concerning uses of force and police misconduct that had been previously unavailable.
In response to the ACLU’s demands, the IPD “has repeatedly dodged these requests for nearly three years now and appears determined to ignore its obligations under the law absent intervention by this court,” the petition states.
Inglewood City Attorney Kenneth Campos did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
The ACLU’s petition asks for records that involve uses of force causing death or great bodily injury, discharges of firearms at a person, sustained findings of sexual assault involving a member of the public and sustained findings of dishonesty in the reporting, investigation or prosecution of a crime or investigation of misconduct.
Instead of complying and despite multiple followup efforts, the department “has still not produced a single responsive record” and on Dec. 14, the Inglewood City Council adopted a resolution authorizing the IPD to destroy records that are potentially responsive to the ACLU’s requests, the petition states.
When the ACLU demanded that the department refrain from destroying any such records, the ACLU received no response, according to the petition.
The Inglewood city council voted unanimously to destroy certain police records during the Dec. 14 regular city council meeting. The action was taken after a member of the LA County public defender’s office called in requesting the agenda item be pulled under the guidelines of Senate Bill 776 related to making certain police records available upon request.
The council removed agenda item #10, but voted in favor of it later in the meeting. Mayor Butts explained voting in favor of the resolution was necessary to affirm the retention schedule to “remove” the records as the mayor didn’t want to use the word “destruction” to describe the action.
You can listen to the mayor’s response to why they were destroying the documents by clicking here.
2UrbanGirls contributed to this article
1 Comment
Let us hope everyone will see the big picture here.
The James T Butts “team” does not believe in transparency !
It is the James T Butts administration that has VOTED TO DESTROY the petition which he claims was signed by residents declaring they wanted a stadium rather than that residents would be given the OPTION TO VOTE either that we did OR did not want a stadium in the same way we had the option to VOTE if we wanted a WALMART or NOT. Residents voted NO TO WALMART. James BUTTS and his SELECTED TEAM decided residents would not have the right to vote either for or against a stadium and so THERE WAS NO ELECTION CONDUCTED TO FIND OUT WHAT RESIDENTS WANTED. However James Butts continues to TELL THE LIE that residents voted for a stadium and foolish and unscrupulous “ newscasters” print and repeat that lie over and over…. YES People that is one example false “news reporting”. Then City Clerk YVONNE HORTON (wife of then Senator JEROME HORTON) destroyed the Petition – or at least claimed she already had- before the vote was taken during the city council meeting to destroy that important public document..
The James T Butts team further voted in a just-in-time-to-avoid-following-the-law council meeting to DESTROY all police records involving abuse of force, in December 2017.
James Butts has attempted to Silence anyone who questions his actions by:
intimidation – telling a resident to “GO CHOKE YOURSELF”
termination – finance department personnel Barbara Ono
false legal action- falsely claiming council meeting recordings are Copyrighted and suing Joseph Tixeira
And by disallowing the City Treasurer access to her office, or public reporting opportunity during council meetings and also significantly decreasing her salary and benefits.
All this in addition to his hiring and paying his girlfriend nearly $300,000.00 per year then firing her when she decided to end the relationship.
NOT ALLOWING THE TRUTH TO BE TOLD IS THE HALL MARK OF JAMES T BUTTS that he will coverup wrong doing is a given.
Unfortunately there are those sports worshipers who would be content that others suffer greatly as long as their favorite players can keep balls in the air………What was that story? ….When the house of cards encounters a wind…..unfortunately James T BUTTS has built a house of lies and when it does meet its truth (and yes it will) it will be Inglewood residents left to pick up the debt and pieces of what had been a city that cared about her community members….
Didn’t BUTTS just bring back Mark Weinberg who engineered the ever so costly bankruptcy in San Bernardino? Yep those not exactly truthful articles which Mark wrote for Careers in Government have earned him a nice little contract. -FYI for truth seekers “The City of Champions” identified Inglewood the home of medal winning Olympians in 1932 (some 20 years before James T Butts was even born). Hector Dyer, Frank Booth, and George Jefferson were the Champions recognized by the world – a distinctive accomplishment no one should attempt to diminish or claim for themself, or ascribe to another.