GA PIT /TVI Maneuver Data
| Submitted | June 16, 2023 |
| Est. Completion | None |
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Communications
From: Andrew Free
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the Georgia Open Records Act, I hereby request the following records:
1. A record (spreadsheet, report printout, PowerPoint slide deck, email, database dashboard) showing any county-by-county, city-by-city, OR year-over-year data maintained or received by GSP between January 1, 2018, and the present on the use of PIT (precision intervention technique) or TVI (tactical vehicle intervention) maneuvers by Georgia Law Enforcement Agencies who engage in vehicle pursuits. We are happy to narrow this request, based on advice from your Records Officer, on the format such data might appear within. We do not seek law enforcement sensitive, privileged, duplicative, or cumulative records.
2. The Georgia State Patrol’s PIT Policy, as currently in effect.
3. The Georgia State Patrol’s PIT Policy that was in effect at the time of publication of this article - Jun 2016: https://theintercept.com/2016/02/11/pit-maneuver-how-police-use-anti-terrorism-tactic-to-end-pursuits/
Thank you!
The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.
In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.
Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 3 business days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
Andrew Free
From: Muckrock Staff
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Georgia Open Records Act request, copied below, and originally submitted on June 19, 2023. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Department Of Public Safety, Georgia State Patrol
Good morning,
We are in receipt of your open records request. DPS will seek reimbursement pursuant to our charging chart and consistent with Georgia law. For fee information, please see O.C.G.A. §50-18-71. If the costs exceed $25.00, we will wait for your agreement to pay the estimated costs before completing the request. Please see O.C.G.A. §50-18-71(d). Please note that our records retention policy allows misdemeanor records to be destroyed after three years, felony records after seven years. Our current policies are available online. Please go to https://dps.georgia.gov/department-public-safety-policies. You may refer to Chapter 17 for Operational Procedures including pursuits.
Please clarify your request regarding #1 so we may better assist. For example, if you want to request a list of all DPS PIT maneuvers since 2018 by date, location etc. 2021 a query can be run at an hourly rate of $73.99 per hour. This task will be conducted by an IT specialist with the capability of performing such a search on a protected system. Any hits will be transferred to a spreadsheet. After reviewing the spreadsheet if you want any individual releasable incident reports, the search, retrieval, review, redaction, and production tasks will be charged at a reimbursement fee of $2.00 per report. You may review our charging chart at https://dps.georgia.gov/charging-fees-open-records-requests<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fdps.georgia.gov%2fcharging-fees-open-records-requests&c=E,1,-Aj9HDKnyN0k47g5rVPZdQ6_8l55EdWhhEvtQ7KFXGS5zorIs0bC0y_thnQriLK7IqJNsItbIaJrAH5lrNvFnGGZ4spIyUgNfrsamz-IoSMYDagu&typo=1>. If you want a query, please provide specific parameters so we may contact our IT specialist for a time/cost estimate.
If we do not hear from you within two weeks this request will be closed.
Thank you,
Nkenge Green
Attorney Manager, Open Records Unit
Legal Division, Suite 430
Georgia Department of Public Safety
959 United Avenue SE
Atlanta, Georgia 30316
Phone: 404-624-7591
Fax: 404-624-7529
ngreen@gsp.net<mailto:ngreen@gsp.net>
[cid:image002.png@01D9A81A.FEB6CFF0]
https://eports.gamccd.net/orportal
From: Andrew Free
Thank you very much for this information!
When you say the query can be run at a cost of $73.99 per hour, it raises two questions:
1. What increment of 1 hour will it take to run the search? If it’s 6 minutes (1/4th of an hour), that should cost $18.75. If it’s 60 minutes, it’d cost more.
Can you please clarify why the database search you’ve proposed would take more than 15 minutes?
2. Second, please confirm that the lowest-paid GSP official with the requisite skills to conduct this search is paid $153,899 per year. I’m unable to find a public pay scale reflecting an IT worker getting paid 3x a GSP cadet: https://dps.georgia.gov/gsp-career-path
As you know, OCGA 50-18-71(c)(1) allows only “reasonable” search fees. This charge is not applicable to the first quarter hour of fees. And the rate must be equivalent to the prorated hourly salary of the lowest paid employee with the necessary skill and training to perform the search.
Is it really the case that your lowest paid employee with the requisite skill and training to perform this search gets paid $153k a year and can’t even finish the search in less than 15 minutes?
Or would the GSP like to try again, this time complying with the plain language of the statute.
Either way, I’m interested in having this search conducted and will agree to pay the rates mandated by statute for the time period required. No more, no less.
Thank you,
Andrew Free