New Bedford Police 2020-22 policy and data update. Gang and FIO

New Bedford Police Department Public Records Officer:

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

1. Any new policy or policy revisions made after October 1, 2020 concerning stop and frisk and/or field interrogation.

2. Stop and frisk and/or field interrogation data for all stop and frisk / field interrogation incidents from October 1, 2020 through when the search is conducted is requested. We request raw data with personal identifying information redacted to protect privacy, in the same format as the City of New Bedford produced in October 2020 in response to Citizens for Juvenile Justice’s (CfJJ) 2020 public records request. As before, we request that any redactions of personally identifiable information do not extend any further than necessary. In particular, we request incident-level data in CSV or excel format (or, if necessary, another electronic format) that includes:
- Sex of individual(s) encountered
- Age of individual(s) encountered
- Race of individual(s) encountered
- Ethnicity of individual(s) encountered
- Location of incident
- Time and date of incident
- Source of the field incident report (ie did this report come in via a 911 call, or other means)
- Whether the field incident included a search of individuals.
- Outcome of field interrogation included in the release, including whether it led to an arrest or not.
- Name of officer filing the field incident report (or other similarly named report)
- Badge number of officer filing the field incident report (or other similarly named report)
- Name of other officers listed in the report, if any
- Badge numbers of other officers listed in the report, if any.

3. Data regarding the number of people that have been identified by your department as gang affiliated, gang involved, or part of a 'threat risk group' since the New Bedford Police Department’s new policy (Policy 419) was promulgated in 2021. We request raw data with personal identifying information and addresses redacted to protect privacy, and we would be happy with the same format as was produced in October 2020. We request that any redactions of personally identifiable information do not extend any further than necessary. Specifically, we request an extract of your department's gang member database (or associated list) to include the following columns:
- Sex of individual(s) on the list
- Age of individual(s) on the list
- Race of individual(s) on the list
- Ethnicity of individual(s) on the list
- Whether the individual on the list is a resident of your municipality or not
- Name of officer who entered the information determined that the individual fulfilled the gang assessment criteria
- Badge number of the officer who determined that the individual fulfilled the gang assessment criteria
- Date individual entered the gang database,
- Most recent date gang related information for the individual was reviewed or entered.

4. A list of current gangs your department considers active, including the following information:
- Name of gang
- Location of gang, including any known or suspected locations of gang activity
- Number of active members of each gang.

5. Records that show the dates of homicides that occurred in the city of New Bedford between January 1, 2005 and the date the search is made. We also request the date of birth (or at least the day and month of birth) of the homicide victims.

6. Any data or records of the number of traffic stops in New Bedford that did not lead to an arrest, citation, or written warning. We request the following information on these traffic stops:
- Sex of individual(s) encountered
- Age of individual(s) encountered
- Race of individual(s) encountered
- Ethnicity of individual(s) encountered
- Location of incident
- Time and date of incident
- Name of officer(s) conducting the traffic stop
- Badge number of officer(s) conducting the traffic stop.
- Reason the traffic stop was initiated.

7. Records that show crime incident data for stabbing and shooting incidents from January 1, 2020 to the date of the search. We request raw data with personal identifying information and addresses redacted to protect privacy. We request that any redactions of personally identifiable information do not extend any further than necessary. Specifically, we request the following information for stabbing and shooting incidents:
- Sex of victim(s) and perpetrator(s)
- Age of victim(s) and perpetrator(s)
- Race of victim(s) and perpetrator(s)
- Ethnicity of victim(s) and perpetrator(s)
- Location of incident
- Time and date of incident

Disclosure of the requested policies and data is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute to public understanding of the intersection of school policing, immigration policy, and the juvenile justice system. To the extent there are the costs associated with the production of these documents, we request they be waived considering that we are a non-profit organization. Should you determine that some portions of the documents are exempt from disclosure, please release any reasonably segregable portions that are not exempt. In addition, please note for any such redactions the applicable statutory exemption and explain why it applies to the redacted or withheld information. 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.

Per Attorney Gen. v. Dist. Attorney for Plymouth Dist., 484 Mass. 260, 141 N.E.3d 429 (2020), compiling information from a database is not tantamount to creating a new record that would otherwise be precluded under public records law. Specifically: “Where public records are in electronic form, a public records request that requires a government entity to search its electronic database to extract requested data does not mean that the extracted data constitute the creation of a new record, which would not be required, under the public records law. " Id. at 442 to 443. Thus, we request that your department query its database and provide a response to data requests above.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter.

Sincerely,
Joshua Dankoff
Director of Strategic Initiatives
Citizens for Juvenile Justice