Long Beach Police Department (CA) Civil Asset Forfeiture Records

Dear Greg Buhl:
Pursuant to California Government Code § 6253, staff will review your request and respond within 10 days to notify you if there are responsive records, or if an extension is necessary to determine if responsive records exist.

If your request was received after business hours or on a weekend or holiday, the next business day will be considered the date of receipt. The 10-day response period starts with the first calendar day after the date of receipt (Ca. Civ. Code, § 10.). You may be contacted by a staff member if there are questions regarding your request. NOTICE: Public records requests and transparency remain of utmost importance, and we are continuing to respond to requests under California Government Code guidelines.  However, you may experience delays in response times as we are focusing on handling high priority issues related to COVID-19 (Coronavirus). Pursuant to Government Code section 6253(c) there may be delays due to unusual circumstances.
Thank you for your interest in public records of the Long Beach Police Department. Your request has been received and will be processed in the order it was received. Your request was received in this office on 5/23/2021 and given the reference number P006649-052321 for tracking purposes.

Records Requested: "To LBPD,

Pursuant to the California Public Records Act I am requesting the following records:

-Any accounting records or statistics on seized real estate, vehicles, firearms, funds in bank accounts and seizures made by the LBPD, as well as seizures made by federal authorities where the LBPD receives a share under the MOUs the department have in place with numerous agencies describing how assets are to be divided.

-Any annual reports produced on the LBPD civil asset forfeiture program.

-Documents showing the balance of any funds currently in the LBPD Civil Asset Forfeiture fund.

-A list of all items seized through civil asset forfeiture and retained for use by the LBPD.

-Please also include any information relating to contested seizures. This request does not include court documents for individual forfeiture cases.

The time period for this request is for the last 10 years.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter in the time frame set out in the CPRA.

Greg Buhl
Lead Researcher at CheckLBPD.org

Upload documents directly: https://https://www.muckrock.comhttps://www.muckrock.com/

You can monitor the progress of your request at the link below and you'll receive an email when your request has been completed. Again, thank you for using the Long Beach Police Department Request Center.

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Dear Greg Buhl, Thank you for your patience.  After reviewing your request, the Finance Department has have determined that additional or more detailed information is needed to
appropriately search for records.
Specifically, please clarify the meaning of “ Any accounting records or statistics on seized real estate, vehicles, firearms, funds…”
While the California Public Records Act (PRA) provides members of the public with
access to public records, it is not unlimited in its scope.  California courts have
acknowledged that members of the public may request documents from municipalities
pursuant to the PRA, even if they are unable to precisely identify the documents sought.
However, the request must still reasonably describe the information contained in the
records sought such that the municipality can locate the records with “reasonable effort”
[Cal. First Amend. Coalition v. Superior Court (1998) 67 Cal. App. 4th 159].
The request must be focused and specific [Rogers v. Superior Court (1993) 19 Cal.
App. 4th 469] and clear enough so that the agency can decipher what record or records
are being sought.  Moreover, the City is not required by law to create a record or list if
one does not already exist at the time the request is submitted. The City will wait for your response before proceeding with this request.  If we do
not hear back from you within 10 calendar days, your request will be closed. Thank you.

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Good afternoon, We are completing an audit for public records requests. Your request does not show completed. During this audit, we would like to know if you wish to continue with your request. Please respond within ten (10) calendar days. If we do not receive a response, your public records request will be closed. Thank you.