The American Civil Liberties Union has provided an update on their lawsuit against the Inglewood Police department in relation to their attempts to destroy records that would have been disclosable by law.
Then Long Beach Chief Robert Luna also destroyed records to keep them from becoming disclosable.
The Inglewood city clerk’s office routinely denies the public access to records and/or vague responses when responding. At times, it can take months for the records to be releases, including records held directly in their office.
The public can’t go to the City’s website to procure basic information related to elections, campaign finance reports, and annual financial disclosures without initiating a records request. Most cities around LA County have those records on their respective websites.
As we are following the case we noted ACLU has filed an amended complaint which prompted us to reach out to their attorney of record for more details.
(Yes) We did (file an amended complaint). The amendment makes two substantial changes. The first is that it takes into account the facts that have changed in the intervening months, mainly that IPD has produced some documents. The other change is that we rewrote the remedy section to include a request that the judge order IPD to proactively disclose these reports as they happen instead of waiting until someone requests them.
Sean Garcia-Leys, Esq.
Inglewood isn’t the only agency that attempted to “beat the clock” and destroy records related to searches. The other agency in question was the Long Beach Police Department.
When we inquired if the ACLU filed a lawsuit against Long Beach PD for the exact same thing, we got this response.
Not to my knowledge.
Sean Garcia-Leys, Esq.
Shouldn’t the ACLU have filed lawsuits against ALL departments who destroyed records to keep the public from accessing them or just in cases that bring the most media attention?
Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts has endorsed Luna for Sheriff. What’s that saying “birds of a feather flock together“.
