Search Warrant Data (Denver Police Department)

LPL filed this request with the Denver Police Department of Denver, CO.
Multi Request Search Warrant Data
Est. Completion None
Status
Fix Required

Communications

From: LPL


To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the Colorado Public Records Law, I hereby request the following records:

For all search warrants, applications for search warrants, cancellations, and authorization for search warrants between 2012 to the date of processing this request, please provide the following points of record for each:

Full Name of requester
If arrest, arrest ID (eg some cities/states use, "Incident Report")
Reason(s) for search warrant (typically either hand-written, or checkboxes)
Badge ID (or similar) of requester
District/Unit
Name of Judge
Name of approving officer
Whether an Arrest happened
Requested location of search warrant
Location of search warrant execution
Type of search warrant
Statements used to justify search warrant
Time and date when search warrant was submitted for approval
Time and date when search warrant was executed
Whether anything was seized
Whether anything was found
License plate of vehicle (if relevant)
Race of person for search warrant
Age of person for search warrant
State of person for search warrant
Whether an informant was involved
Method of contact with informant leading to search warrant (eg, phone call, mail, fax, email, etc)
Description of person search warrant executed on
Legal code of violation
Description of violation
Date of violation
If search warrant related to debt: name of company debt is owed to, amount owed
Whether FBI involved
ID associated with FBI document (eg, IR #)
Whether search warrant was cancelled
Whether contraband found
Whether narcotics found

The records responsive to this request are likely available in a database, or in some query-able format. If your department or agency does not have direct access to the records, please raise to the respective department that can run queries directly (eg, through SQL).

Should your agency not have all of the requested records within a single record or document, please provide me the relevant documents that do, even if that requires more than one class of document. Should some of the records be unavailable, please let me know ahead of time so that we can narrow the request accordingly.

As the records responsive to this request are imperative for understanding how search warrants are executed, I ask that the public interest of these records be evaluated to the extent that the public's interest outweighs this request's burden. To add, this request is being sent to the largest city of every state and will be collated together to create a comprehensive map of search warrants throughout the US. As such, the records are not only important for understanding search warrants at a local level, but also at a national and state-wide level.

Please ensure that provided documents comply with Section 508, as these records will be shared with members of the public who are covered under the ADA. This guide should be helpful: https://www.hhs.gov/web/section-508/making-files-accessible/checklist/pdf/index.html

If this request was sent to the wrong department or agency, please let me know so that I can send to the correct place.

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,

Lucy Parsons Labs

From: Denver Police Department

Good Morning -
The request has been received and is in process.

Thank you,
Andrea Webber | Records Administrator
Department of Public Safety| City and County of Denver
p: 720.913.6749 c: 720.793.5700 | Andrea.Webber@denvergov.org<mailto:Andrea.Webber@denvergov.org>
[https://www.denvergov.org/content/dam/denvergov/Portals/534/images/DenverEmailSignature.jpg]

This e-mail and any attachments thereto are intended only for use by the addressee(s) named herein and may contain legally privileged or confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this e-mail and any attachments thereto is strictly prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify me immediately at 720-913-6749 and permanently delete the original and destroy any copies or printouts. Thank you.

From: Denver Police Department

Please accept this response to your request of the Denver Police Department (DPD) for "[s}earch warrants, applications for search warrants, cancellations, and authorization for search warrants between 2012 to the date." We do not have the ability to identify the cases in which search warrants were sought or issued within our records management system and are therefore, unable to identify and produce records responsive to your request.

Thank you,
Andrea Webber | Records Administrator
Department of Public Safety| City and County of Denver
p: 720.913.6749 c: 720.793.5700 | Andrea.Webber@denvergov.org<mailto:Andrea.Webber@denvergov.org>
[https://www.denvergov.org/content/dam/denvergov/Portals/534/images/DenverEmailSignature.jpg]

This e-mail and any attachments thereto are intended only for use by the addressee(s) named herein and may contain legally privileged or confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this e-mail and any attachments thereto is strictly prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify me immediately at 720-913-6749 and permanently delete the original and destroy any copies or printouts. Thank you.

From: LPL

Could you clarify whether this is a limitation within the records management system's interface, or whether this is a limitation of how the records are stored on the backend? It's very hard for me to believe that there isn't some way to filter cases by whether search warrant information exists.

Could you also please raise this issue to the support staff of the records management system? They may be able to compile the records through a backend method (eg, on the database directly) that your agency doesn't directly have access to.

From: Denver Police Department

The search warrants are scanned into the record management system and attached to the record but there is no way to identify the warrant from any other attached document. The search warrants are a scanned images, there is no way to parse the data from the image.

Thank you,
Andrea Webber | Records Administrator
Department of Public Safety| City and County of Denver
p: 720.913.6749 c: 720.793.5700 | Andrea.Webber@denvergov.org<mailto:Andrea.Webber@denvergov.org>
[https://www.denvergov.org/content/dam/denvergov/Portals/534/images/DenverEmailSignature.jpg]

This e-mail and any attachments thereto are intended only for use by the addressee(s) named herein and may contain legally privileged or confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this e-mail and any attachments thereto is strictly prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify me immediately at 720-913-6749 and permanently delete the original and destroy any copies or printouts. Thank you.

From: LPL

Thank you for the clarification.

Could you also confirm that no records (whatsoever) are transcribed into a digital format? I understand that the search warrants are scanned images, but many agencies have internal requirements to transcribe the records digitally, for the purpose of tracking this class of information.

From: Denver Police Department

Correct.

Andrea Webber

From: LPL

One last question. Do you know if any of the requested records exist within the inventory system of DPD? More specifically, are any of the records from DPD373 (or even 370/371) that are available?

From: Denver Police Department

Yes, we do have the search warrant forms or the templates that you referenced below which are maintained outside the records management system. We again, do not have the ability to identify the cases in which search warrants were sought or issued within our records management system and are therefore, unable to identify and produce records responsive to your request.
Thank you,
Andrea Webber | Records Administrator
Department of Public Safety| City and County of Denver
p: 720.913.6749 c: 720.793.5700 | Andrea.Webber@denvergov.org<mailto:Andrea.Webber@denvergov.org>
[https://www.denvergov.org/content/dam/denvergov/Portals/534/images/DenverEmailSignature.jpg]

This e-mail and any attachments thereto are intended only for use by the addressee(s) named herein and may contain legally privileged or confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this e-mail and any attachments thereto is strictly prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify me immediately at 720-913-6749 and permanently delete the original and destroy any copies or printouts. Thank you.

From: LPL

Looks like there *might* be a way to figure out which cases are related to search warrants, based on the below, where it requires that applications to courts be marked with "Denver Police Department GO#":

From DPD's operations manual, page 203:
"When officers make application to any court (e.g., search warrants, arrest warrants, Rule 41.1, and associated documents such as search warrant envelopes, sealed search warrant envelopes, return and inventory,etc.), officers will place the General Occurrence (GO) report number on those documents. a.If an existing location for the GO number does not exist on the document, officers will hand write or type: “Denver Police Department GO#” and note the GO number for the investigation."

I've submitted another request to get receive those records, however, if you're able to do a search for cases based on the above, I'll cancel that other request. Request link: https://www.muckrock.com/foi/denver-145/subject-lines-of-denver-police-department-go-emails-84442/

From: Denver Police Department

Good Morning
The “GO” or general offense report number is the tracking number for the entire case. Most new DPD cases (except street checks) receive this number and per the operations manual that reference number should be placed on the warrant to ensure it references the correct go. That does not however mean, there is a way to identify the cases in which search warrants were sought or issued (i.e. uploaded) within our records management system.

Thank you,
Andrea Webber | Records Administrator
Department of Public Safety| City and County of Denver
p: 720.913.6749 c: 720.793.5700 | Andrea.Webber@denvergov.org<mailto:Andrea.Webber@denvergov.org>
[https://www.denvergov.org/content/dam/denvergov/Portals/534/images/DenverEmailSignature.jpg]

This e-mail and any attachments thereto are intended only for use by the addressee(s) named herein and may contain legally privileged or confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this e-mail and any attachments thereto is strictly prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify me immediately at 720-913-6749 and permanently delete the original and destroy any copies or printouts. Thank you.

From: Denver Police Department

Good Morning –
Please see the attached response that was sent Thursday December 26, 2019 regarding this request.

Andrea Webber | Records Administrator
Department of Public Safety| City and County of Denver
p: 720.913.6749 c: 720.793.5700 | Andrea.Webber@denvergov.org<mailto:Andrea.Webber@denvergov.org>
[https://www.denvergov.org/content/dam/denvergov/Portals/534/images/DenverEmailSignature.jpg]

This e-mail and any attachments thereto are intended only for use by the addressee(s) named herein and may contain legally privileged or confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this e-mail and any attachments thereto is strictly prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify me immediately at 720-913-6749 and permanently delete the original and destroy any copies or printouts. Thank you.

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