The case arose from the demands of The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund which requested the D.C. police in 2008 to provide copies of policies and special orders showing how the police functioned in the capital of the nation. Upon being refused, the nonprofit advocacy group went to the court in 2009.
D.C. police department officials stated in sworn statements before the court that releasing the documents would endanger the public and tantamount to supplying criminals and terrorists with inside information. The officers claimed that there were no meaningful ways to withhold certain sensitive portions and offer the rest of the documents for scrutiny.
The Superior Court Judge, however, found the stance of the D.C. police to be “melodramatic” and expressed “great concern with the credibility” of the officials. She also referred to the police representations as “transparently false.”
The judge said that the withheld documents had been thoroughly reviewed by the court and many of them were innocuous and did not contain any sensitive information. Some of them were so old as to be considered obsolete. Some of the documents the police refused to handover had already been made public on other forums.
The executive e director of the nonprofit advocacy group, Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, said “You can't just make things up and sign under penalty of perjury, and that's what they've done in this case.”
In some documents, the judge redacted sensitive portions, but ruled otherwise that the records asked for be released forthwith.
Among the documents ordered to be partially released is the document that records how the D.C. police deploys civil disturbance units for major events, and another that lays down how first responders to a homicide should function to protect a crime scene and coordinate activities. The judge said that the document signed in 1980 only contained common sense provisions and not any sensitive information that could aid criminals or terrorists.
