SAN DIEGO (CN) — The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California claims in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in San Diego County Superior Court that the Chula Vista Police Department has a history of disregarding requests for public records, especially records of fatal uses of force. When the department does release records, the civil rights group says, they’re delayed, redacted, and incomplete.
As a part of a joint initiative with the California Reporting Project and journalism programs at the University of California-Berkeley and Stanford University to create a database of police misconduct and use of force records for the public, the ACLU submitted a Public Records Act request with the Chula Vista Police Department in 2019. The nonprofit asked for documents relating to administrative investigations of police use of force that caused great bodily harm, or death; discharges of firearms at a person; sustained findings of officer dishonesty in reporting, investigating, or prosecution of a crime; and sustained findings of sexual assault involving an officer for certain years.
The Chula Vista Police Department, the ACLU claims, produced three documents relating to a single incident of an officer having sex with a member of the public on duty in 2018, and told the group it had no other records.
The ACLU claims that after looking through news articles and the Department of Justice’s use of force database for reported incidents involving the police department it found 19 other incidents that should have had records attached to them, including 16 officer-involved shootings, findings of officer dishonesty, an in-custody death that occurred during an arrest, and an incident in which police use of force resulted in great bodily injury.
That, the organization says in its complaint, implies “that the department’s representation that it had no other responsive records was false." Thus, the ACLU claims, the department violated the California Public Records Act — which allows the public to access certain government records and records relating to public officials, and requires public agencies to release those records — and recent amendments to the law.
When the department finally did release some more of the requested records, the ACLU claims they contained pages of improper redactions, which also violate the law.
The ACLU also says the department has specifically refused to produce records relating to the in-custody death of a man named Jason Watts in 2018.
The only records the department would release, the organization says in its complaint, was a “press board report” that didn’t address Watts’ in-custody death.
“The public has a right to know the details of this fatal incident and the department’s decision-making regarding the appropriateness of the officers’ conduct,” the ACLU says in its complaint.
The ACLU is asking the court to issue a peremptory writ of mandate to compel the Chula Vista Police Department to immediately disclose the requested public records without redactions, a declaration that the department violated the Public Records Act, and for reasonable attorneys’ fees, costs of the suit, and other and relief determined by the court.
The Police Records Access Project mission to “better understand California policing and potentially serve as an accountability mechanism for uses of force and misconduct,” the ACLU adds in its complaint, was endorsed by the state government because UC Berkeley’s database was allocated $6.87 million in the state’s 2023-2024 budget.
“We will of course be looking into it. Unfortunately we won’t be able to comment until we’ve been able to review the filing," Sergeant Anthony Molina, a public information officer with the Chula Vista Police Department said regarding the complaint Tuesday.
“The Chula Vista Police Department has shown a blatant disregard for the California Public Records Act and the public’s fundamental right to know about serious uses of force and police abuse of power. By shrouding these police misconduct and serious use of force records in secrecy, the Chula Vista Police Department runs afoul of the purpose of SB 1421 and undercuts meaningful efforts to hold law enforcement accountable for their actions,” wrote Tiffany Bailey, interim director of police practices at ACLU of Southern California in an email.
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