5 ms·

Unions are part of the problem to the extent that they nurture the culture that tolerates and promotes behaviors like the ones discussed in the article, e.g., "

by rmxt 11y ago

Unions are part of the problem to the extent that they nurture the culture that tolerates and promotes behaviors like the ones discussed in the article, e.g., "trickling" documents in a manner that is legal (but against the spirit of public access laws), intentionally maintaining antiquated systems that keep the wheels of public access nice and sticky, and flat-out denying the existence of records (mighty convenient that that camera was broken, right?). The point of the article that you seem to be overlooking is the fact that "talking to any cop working right now" is exactly how we end up in situations where police are abusing their power. Yes, I see that you are specifically referring to "excessive force" complaints, but I am also extending it to "cops watching cops" as a method of fair and proper oversight. When only 6.4% of complaints (284/4407) are sustained and no officers are fired for misconduct over the span of 3 years, seems to me that there's a problem with the oversight in place. What employer that has over a thousand employees doesn't have to terminate an employee over the span of 3 years?

nickodell 11y ago
>"trickling" documents in a manner that is legal (but against the spirit of public access laws) Remember, though, that they're asking for an enormous number of documents. As far as the spirit of the law goes, I think it's more intended for someone to just request the documents that they're interested in, rather than just hoovering up every document the police have.
- rmxt 11y ago
  It's not "every document the police" have, it's every document that a specific office in the police department has. It's an enormous amount of documents, but it's pretty clear that the tactic that the OPA is using is "produce documents for the duo more slowly than they can destroy them." I doubt that there's a stipulation that says the request must be completed and the records maintained until the request is complete. "Oh, it took 5 years to process your request, but due to department policy, we had to destroy all documents from the first year of your request." That's a far grosser violation of the spirit of the public access law than anything a public citizen can do. And to bring the point back to the unions: the union signed a contract mandating that records be destroyed after 3 years. Not archive, not digitize, but destroy? That destruction isn't to ease job performance, it's to ease long-term liability for the police to the detriment of the general population.
  - nickodell 11y ago
    >I doubt that there's a stipulation that says the request must be completed and the records maintained until the request is complete. "Oh, it took 5 years to process your request, but due to department policy, we had to destroy all documents from the first year of your request." That's an interesting point, and I don't see that that sort of behavior is specifically prohibited anywhere in Chapter 42.56 RCW.

by rmxt 11y ago

nickodell 11y ago

>"trickling" documents in a manner that is legal (but against the spirit of public access laws) Remember, though, that they're asking for an enormous number of documents. As far as the spirit of the law goes, I think it's more intended for someone to just request the documents that they're interested in, rather than just hoovering up every document the police have.

rmxt 11y ago
It's not "every document the police" have, it's every document that a specific office in the police department has. It's an enormous amount of documents, but it's pretty clear that the tactic that the OPA is using is "produce documents for the duo more slowly than they can destroy them." I doubt that there's a stipulation that says the request must be completed and the records maintained until the request is complete. "Oh, it took 5 years to process your request, but due to department policy, we had to destroy all documents from the first year of your request." That's a far grosser violation of the spirit of the public access law than anything a public citizen can do. And to bring the point back to the unions: the union signed a contract mandating that records be destroyed after 3 years. Not archive, not digitize, but destroy? That destruction isn't to ease job performance, it's to ease long-term liability for the police to the detriment of the general population.
- nickodell 11y ago
  >I doubt that there's a stipulation that says the request must be completed and the records maintained until the request is complete. "Oh, it took 5 years to process your request, but due to department policy, we had to destroy all documents from the first year of your request." That's an interesting point, and I don't see that that sort of behavior is specifically prohibited anywhere in Chapter 42.56 RCW.