Baltimore Police Helicopter Logs

Dear Mr. Lewis,

You have made a request for public records pursuant to the Maryland Public Information Act, Annotated Code of Maryland, General Provisions Article, § 4-101, et seq, to the Baltimore Police Department (“BPD”). You have requested all Baltimore City Police Department helicopter logs from year 2009 - Until now.

1. For each year between 2009- present;
a. For each year how much flight time was recorded? How many flights recorded?
b. For each year how many times did BCPD Aviation unit provide assistance? What part of city? For what use?
c. I am also requesting all complaints filed to the Baltimore City Police Department in regards to the police departments helicopters operating in the city.

I have forward your request to the BPD’s Aviation Unit for review. Once they identified the records and provided this office with the staff time to search for, prepare for the reproduction of the records,I will contact you with the costs allowed by the General Provisions Article, § 4-206 of the Annotated Code of Maryland.

Please Note: The Office of Legal Affairs had not seen this request prior to December 1, 2015.

Thank You

Wayne Brooks
Assistant to Legal Affairs
Baltimore Police Department
DCU@baltimorepolice.org<mailto:DCU@baltimorepolice.org>

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: The information contained in or attached to this e-mail message may be a privileged and confidential attorney/client communication, or otherwise confidential, and is intended only for the use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, or the employee or agent responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are notified that any distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the Legal Affairs Division immediately by telephone at 410-396-2496 and DELETE the message from your system immediately. Thank you.

The materials in this e-mail are private and may contain sensitive law enforcement information. Please note that e-mail is not necessarily confidential or secure. Use of e-mail constitutes your acknowledgment of these confidentiality and security limitations. If you are not the intended recipient, be advised that any unauthorized use, disclosure, copying, distribution, or the taking of any action in reliance on the contents of this information is strictly prohibited as covered by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510-2521. If you have received this e-mail in error, please immediately notify the sender via telephone or return e-mail.

December 15, 2015

Via E-Mail

MuckRock
DEPT MR 14487
PO Box 55819
Boston, MA 02205-5819

Dear Mr. Lewis,

A). The BPD’s Aviation Unit was able to locate the Aviation Unit’s yearly stats for January 1, 2013 to December 10, 2015 along with the flight officer’s log for each flight. The General Provisions Article, § 4-206 of the Annotated Code of Maryland, allows the official custodian of public records to charge an applicant a reasonable fee for the search, preparation, and reproduction of a public record. This provision reflects a legislative judgment that the taxpayers need not subsidize PIA requesters (except for the first two hours of search and preparation time, which are free to the requester under State Government Article, § 10- 621(c)), See 81Opinion of the Attorney General 154 (1996). There are approximately 1000-1200 pages ($.50 per page) to these reports.

This office along with the Aviation Unit expended over 6 hour in correspondence, locating, coping and scanning the records for transfer to a CD. For the Aviation Unit to search their archives for logs going back to 2009 (an additional four years), and prepare records for public release would take about 6-10 more hours at $50.00 per hour. The twelve hours of staff time excluding the first two hours not charged would be $500.00.

If you accept the 2013-2015 flight logs as the complete fulfillment of your request the BPD will waive all staff time and costs with the exception of $25.00 to transfer the records to CD. If you would like a copy of the available documents remit check or money order in the amount of $25.00 payable to the Director of Finance; mail the payment to the Baltimore Police Department’s Office Legal Affairs, 100 N Holiday St., Room 100, Baltimore, Md. 21202 You will need to provide a mailing address to send the records. If this office does not receive payment within thirty days of the date of this letter, this file will be closed.

B). The flight logs do not identify specific incidents that Fox Trout (call name for BPD helicopters) was called to assist. To obtain offense reports, video, audio from about Fox Trourt’s use for officer’s assistance you will need to provide the Baltimore Police Department the police report number(s) CC# for each specific incident. To help the BPD identify the records you are requesting please provide the following information:

1. The police report number or complaint number (cc #) and judicial case number.
2. The victim’s name.
3. Suspects name (name charged under) and date of birth
4. The date and location of the offense.
5. Type of offense

If you do not have all of this information, please provide as much information you have. Once you provide enough information to identify your request, this office will forward your request to the appropriate custodian(s). For each incident you can identify please complete a records request form for CCTV Fox Trot (helicopter) video, 911/dispatch audio and offense reports.

C). This office is only aware of one citizen complaint concerning the BPD helicopter flights. That complaint was received on December 3, 2015 by the NED and forwarded to IAD. The Baltimore Police Department cannot released information concerning citizens’ complaints. These records are considered personnel records and are exempt from disclosure pursuant to General Provisions Article § 4-311 of the annotated Code of Maryland. Internal Investigation Records (IAD) records, which contain complaints against officers for conduct within the scope of their employment with the Baltimore Police Department, fall within the definition of personnel records and are therefore exempt from disclosure.

Sincerely,

Wayne Brooks
Assistant to Legal Affairs
Baltimore City Police Department
DCU@baltimorepolice.org

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: The information contained in or attached to this e-mail message may be a privileged and confidential attorney/client communication, or otherwise confidential, and is intended only for the use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, or the employee or agent responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are notified that any distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the Legal Affairs Division immediately by telephone at 410-396-2496 and DELETE the message from your system immediately. Thank you.

The materials in this e-mail are private and may contain sensitive law enforcement information. Please note that e-mail is not necessarily confidential or secure. Use of e-mail constitutes your acknowledgment of these confidentiality and security limitations. If you are not the intended recipient, be advised that any unauthorized use, disclosure, copying, distribution, or the taking of any action in reliance on the contents of this information is strictly prohibited as covered by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510-2521. If you have received this e-mail in error, please immediately notify the sender via telephone or return e-mail.