Criminals Exploiting COVID-19 Outbreak for Financial Gain through Procurement and Consumer Fraud (Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department)

Thank you for your interest in public records of the City of Indianapolis and Marion County.

This message acknowledges your request has been received and is being processed in accordance with the Indiana Access to Public Records Act, Indiana Code chapter 5-14-3-1, et. seq ("APRA"). Your request was received in this office on 4/22/2020 and given the reference number P006944-042220 for tracking purposes.

You requested the following records: "To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the Indiana Access to Public Records Act, I hereby request the following records:

Documents, memos, emails, reports and other records describing exploitation by criminals of the COVID-19 the outbreak as well as records mentioning or generated as part of or as a result of Liaison Information Report (LIR) 200323006, titled "Criminals Exploiting COVID-19 Outbreak for Financial Gain through Procurement and Consumer Fraud."

I am a member of the news media and request classification as such. I have previously written about the government and its activities, with some reaching over 100,000 readers in outlets such as Gizmodo, MuckRock, Motherboard, Property of the People, Unicorn Riot, and The Outline, among others. As such, as I have a reasonable expectation of publication and my editorial and writing skills are well established. In addition, I discuss and comment on the files online and make them available through non-profits such as the library Internet Archive and the journalist non-profit MuckRock, disseminating them to a large audience. While my research is not limited to this, a great deal of it, including this, focuses on the activities and attitudes of the government itself. As such, it is not necessary for me to demonstrate the relevance of this particular subject in advance.

As my primary purpose is to inform about government activities by reporting on it and making the raw data available, I request that fees be waived.

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 7 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Emma Best

Attachments:

https://cdn.muckrock.com/outbound_composer_attachments/EmmaBest/83072/LIR2020032300620-20Criminals20Exploiting20COVID-1920Outbreak20for20Financial20Gain20th.pdf
Upload documents directly: https://https://www.muckrock.comhttps://www.muckrock.com/
Your request will be forwarded to the relevant city or county agency for review and a determination of whether there are public records responsive to your request and, if so, whether those public records are disclosable to you. The city or county agency will contact you concerning your request and inform you whether there are public records responsive to your request, if all or part of those public records are not disclosable to you, and the statutory basis for any denial. Information pertaining to any copying fees that may be related to obtaining copies will be provided. Please Note: With respect to public records requests that include e-mail communications, we want to make you aware that these requests generally take longer than requests for other types of information.  First, the City/County receives a large number of requests for email communications, not just public records requests but also related to legal proceedings.  We rely upon our information technology agency to perform these searches and that agency runs these searches (based  upon reasonably particular search terms as set forth by the State Public Access Counselor) in the order in which the requests are received.  Once the email search is completed, there must also be a review of the content of the email communications to ensure that they are not only responsive to your request but also disclosable.  Finally, disclosable email communications will be produced after this review and if we do not disclose all or part of these email communications, we will provide the statutory bases for such denials as required under the APRA.

The APRA requires public agencies to produce responsive and disclosable public records, should they exist, within a reasonable time based upon the circumstances.   Please allow the agency time to review and process your request.  Depending on the nature of the request, this may be several days.

If you have not received any response and at least 10 days have passed since submission, feel free to contact the Public Access Counselor to check the status.  Additionally, if you have general questions about the Indiana Access to Public Records Act, please contact the Public Access Counselor at any time.

You may reach the Public Access Counselor at 317.327.4055 or PAC@indy.gov. (mailto:PAC@indy.gov)

Thank you,

City of Indianapolis and Marion County

--- Please respond above this line ---

Good morning,
The requested records are being withheld pursuant to the criminal intelligence exception of the Access to Public Records Act ("APRA"), Indiana Code 5-14-3-4(b)(25), and the deliberative material exception to APRA, Indiana Code 5-14-3-4(b)(6).
Sincerely,
Marianne McCalip
Paralegal, IMPD