Police department misconduct allegations and disciplinary proceedings

Beryl Lipton filed this request with the Homer Village Police Department of Homer, NY.

It is a clone of this request.

Due June 24, 2020
Est. Completion None
Status
Awaiting Response

Communications

From: Beryl Lipton

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the New York Freedom of Information Law, I hereby request the following records:

All materials and records describing and sufficient to show/disclose all allegations of misconduct made and all disciplinary proceedings taken against any officer, employee, or representative of this policing agency.

As described in the New York Freedom of Information Law, a record is "any information kept, held, filed, produced or reproduced by, with or for an agency or the state legislature, in any physical form whatsoever including, but not limited to, reports, statements, examinations, memoranda, opinions, folders, files, books, manuals, pamphlets, forms, papers, designs, drawings, maps, photos, letters, microfilms, computer tapes or discs, rules, regulations or codes." Records kept in a digital or electronic form are also records, would be responsive to this request, and should be provided.

These records are typically required to be retained under the New York State Records Retention and Disposition Schedule MU-1 (http://www.archives.nysed.gov/records/retention_mu-1), including, but not limited to, item no. 365, which includes: "Investigative records and disciplinary proceedings, including but not limited to statement of charge, transcript of hearing, notice of decision, letter of termination or resignation, letter of reinstatement, record of appeal procedure, and correspondence." While materials under that schedule have a set retention of 3 years after the final decision rendered, this request and materials responsive to it include *all* records held in the possession of any office or individual employed or formerly employed by this policing agency, including those kept off-site, in digital form, and in personnel files.

Please note that any failure to provide all potentially-responsive materials and/or the destruction of materials potentially responsive to this request would be a violation of the spirit of the New York Freedom of Information Law, as well as unlawful under the New York FOIL and the terms of the attached litigation hold notice.

Materials responsive to this request include — but are not limited to — all complaints, reports, records of discipline and penalties, aggregate collections of complaint and disciplinary materials (spreadsheets, databases), investigatory materials, relevant related correspondence, photographs, video, other related evidence, proof of discipline or fulfillment of penalties, and all personnel materials (including those used in promotion, contract, and other employment negotiations and considerations) that reference or utilize misconduct allegations or disciplinary materials of any sort.

Materials responsive to this request include all complaints— internal, external, and civilian — and include records disclosing the names, badge numbers, and personnel identification of each officer involved and/or serving as a witness, as well as all available details of the incident/complaint: date, time, location, nature of the incident, description of the incident, nature of the investigation, investigatory materials, the disposition of the case, and any subsequent materials related to the execution of any resultant discipline. Responsive materials include all complaints and allegations against any officer, employee, or representative of this policing agency, regardless of whether that complaint or allegation resulted in any investigation or disciplinary action.

Responsive materials also include all records of use of force by officers, including records disclosing the names, badge numbers, and personnel identification of each officer involved and/or serving as a witness, as well as all available details of the incident: date, time, location, nature of the incident, description of the incident, nature of the use of force, subsequent investigatory materials related to the use of force, the disposition of any investigation into the incident, and any subsequent materials related to the use of force.

Please provide materials on a rolling basis, beginning with materials created during the following timeframes:
• January 1, 2010 - June 15, 2020
• January 1, 2000 - January 1, 2010
• January 1, 1990 - January 1, 2000
• January 1, 1980 - January 1, 1990
• January 1, 1970 - January 1, 1980

Pursuant to NYCRR Section 1401.5(c)(1), should any of this request be unclear or lack sufficient description for your office, please provide direction that would enable this requester to request records reasonably described. Please also note that the New York FOIL states: "An agency shall not deny a request on the basis that the request is voluminous or that locating or reviewing the requested records or providing the requested copies is burdensome because the agency lacks sufficient staffing or on any other basis if the agency may engage an outside professional service to provide copying, programming or other services required to provide the copy...." Please also see FOIL AO 19671, an Advisory Opinion from the Committee on Open Government [https://docs.dos.ny.gov/coog/ftext/f19671.htm].

If your office has questions about this request or would like to discuss it for any reason, please contact this requester via the contact email address provided and feel free to follow up by phone: 617-299-1832. This request is being submitted to each policing agency in New York as part of a collaborative project led by MuckRock and involving multiple other educational and journalistic partners and participants. For this reason, over the lifetime of this request, your agency may interface with individuals not listed on this initial communication.

This request is being made in the public interest by a news organization as part of non-profit (not commercial) journalistic work and research on behalf of the public. 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 and as part of the necessary negotiations for successful processing. As far as it is possible, please fulfill elements of this request 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 5 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Beryl Lipton

  • MuckRock_Litigation_Hold_-_Template20-202020-06-17T143326.288.pdf

From: Homer Village Police Department

We have received your FOIL request and but will need more time to complete. Thank you.

Robert H. Pitman
Chief of Police
Village of Homer Police Department
43 ½ James Street
Homer, NY 13077
607-749-2028 (office)
607-749-3657 (fax)
rpitman@homerny.org<mailto:rpitman@homerny.org>

[cid:image001.png@01D5D6C3.F5216170]

This email, including attachments, may include confidential and/or proprietary information and is intended for persons sent to only. If the reader of this email is not the intended recipient or his or her authorized agent, the reader is hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this email is prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender by replying to this message and deleting this email immediately.

From: Homer Village Police Department

To Whom It May Concern,

As indicated in a return email dated June 22, 2020, we received your FOIL request but need more time to compile the records.

Please be advised that our records are not in the digital format and they will be time consuming reviewing them to redact information that can-not be release according to law (medical, personal addresses, etc.). Therefore, I can-not provide you a time frame when they will be available to you.

Also please be advised, that there will be a charge associated with obtaining the requested records. The charge will consist of twenty-five cents per page and since it is time consuming for our personnel, which will exceed two hours, there will be an hourly charge for our personnel clerk to review and redact information for the requested records. The hourly charge will be for each hour above two hours.

Thank you.

Robert H. Pitman
Chief of Police
Village of Homer Police Department
43 ½ James Street
Homer, NY 13077
607-749-2028 (office)
607-749-3657 (fax)
rpitman@homerny.org<mailto:rpitman@homerny.org>

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“Courage is being scared to death…
and saddling up anyway.” – John Wayne

This email, including attachments, may include confidential and/or proprietary information and is intended for persons sent to only. If the reader of this email is not the intended recipient or his or her authorized agent, the reader is hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this email is prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender by replying to this message and deleting this email immediately.

From: Beryl Lipton

Hello Chief Pitman,

I hope this message finds you well. I'm wondering whether you could please provide an estimated completion date for this request. I last heard from your office in July.

I understand that it may take a while longer to process this FOIL, but having a realistic sense of when the request will be completed will help me to avoid unnecessary follow-up messages.

Thanks so much for your help.

Best,
Beryl

From: Beryl Lipton

Hello, Chief Pitman —

Thanks so much for your time on the phone today. I understand that it will take some time to collect and digitize the requested records. I think it would be best to receive a fee estimate before your office proceeds with a complete review of the requested records, but I would like to note that we would be open to covering fees up to $75 with the possibility that we would increase our limit once we have a sense for how much the total will be.

Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help clarify the request or if any questions arise. I really appreciate your time and help.

Best wishes,
Beryl
617-500-7123

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