North Charleston, SC PD Citizen Complaints

Dear Mr. Cartwright and Ms. Dirmeyer,

I am in receipt of your Freedom of Information Act request as submitted through the third party handler, Muckrock. Please be advised that we have an online FOIA portal where you may submit FOIAS—and more than likely—receive your documents in a much more timely manner.

Today is the first day I am seeing this FOIA. In the future, please direct all FOIAS directly to me, bwoodall@northcharleston.org<mailto:bwoodall@northcharleston.org>. They must first be approved by Legal. It looks like it will take a bit of time to formulate the information you are seeking, so I will begin by putting together a cost estimate.

I hope to be back in touch with you after the Thanksgiving holiday.

Thank you,

Beth Woodall
Legal Department

Public Information Officer
PO Box 62558
North Charleston, SC 29419

November 21, 2017

This is a follow up to a previous request:

To Whom It May Concern:

I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on Aug. 14, 2017. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.

Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.

Filed via MuckRock.com
E-mail (Preferred): requests@muckrock.com<mailto:requests@muckrock.com>
Upload documents directly: https://www.muckrock.com/accounts/agency_login/north-charleston-police-department-3564/north-charleston-sc-pd-citizen-complaints-41979/?uuid-login=6c127314-b410-4639-bcc0-12c96e1198ba&email=spencerpryor%40northcharleston.org#agency-reply
Is this email coming to the wrong contact? Something else wrong? Use the above link to let us know.

For mailed responses, please address (see note):
MuckRock News
DEPT MR 41979
411A Highland Ave
Somerville, MA 02144-2516

PLEASE NOTE: This request is not filed by a MuckRock staff member, but is being sent through MuckRock by the above in order to better track, share, and manage public records requests. Also note that improperly addressed (i.e., with the requester's name rather than "MuckRock News" and the department number) requests might be returned as undeliverable.

---

On Aug. 14, 2017:
To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act, I hereby request the following records:

We are Economics Professors in the College of Business at Ferris State University, and are engaged in an empirical research project on police behavior and citizen complaints. This project requires us to request data from your department. If you have questions about this request or suggestions, we would be happy to discuss them with you.
1. What is the total number of citizen complaints (allegations of misconduct) made against your department’s officers annually for the last 10 years? If your department logs complaints in a database, spreadsheet, or other log, a copy of those logs is fine instead.
Please include the type of complaint (i.e., use of force, abuse language, unwarranted search) and the result of complaint (i.e., sustained, exonerated).
2. What is the total number of complaints police officers made against their peer officers in department annually for the last 10 years? If your department logs complaints in a database, spreadsheet, or other log, a copy of those logs is fine instead.
Please include the type of complaint (i.e., use of force, abuse language, unwarranted search) and the result of complaint (i.e., sustained, exonerated).
3. What is the annual number of officers involved in shootings in your department for the past 10 years? Any documentation or reports that detail the annual number of officer-involved shootings in your department for the past 10 years would be sufficient.
Please include documentation regarding how many of these officer-involved shootings involved disciplinary action. (Please list officer firearm discharge directed at a person separately from a shooting involving an animal and separately from accidental firearm discharges).
Please include the number of officer-involved shootings resulting in discipline.
4. Which of the above data are published publicly? Please provide a link to any and all publicly available reports containing the data above.
Collecting this information is very important to our research, so we would like to emphasize, if you have questions about my request or suggestions, we would be happy to discuss them with you.

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 15 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Alexander Cartwright and Jennifer Dirmeyer

Filed via MuckRock.com
E-mail (Preferred): requests@muckrock.com<mailto:requests@muckrock.com>
Upload documents directly: https://www.muckrock.com/accounts/agency_login/north-charleston-police-department-3564/north-charleston-sc-pd-citizen-complaints-41979/?uuid-login=6c127314-b410-4639-bcc0-12c96e1198ba&email=spencerpryor%40northcharleston.org#agency-reply
Is this email coming to the wrong contact? Something else wrong? Use the above link to let us know.

For mailed responses, please address (see note):
MuckRock News
DEPT MR 41979
411A Highland Ave
Somerville, MA 02144-2516

PLEASE NOTE: This request is not filed by a MuckRock staff member, but is being sent through MuckRock by the above in order to better track, share, and manage public records requests. Also note that improperly addressed (i.e., with the requester's name rather than "MuckRock News" and the department number) requests might be returned as undeliverable.
[http://email.requests.muckrock.com/o/eJwNzEsSgyAMANDT1CWTYKKwYGO9RwchrY4fbNRFb1_fAV4OzE01BQvYIlpEAGAwaMkTGlc3XdNx51zvn753DwKV7yXHeZj1SrOWNJtU1moM3BLKMBCntx3EWogZxMfa55rRkatkjdPymnIgYgKoNBy7bEl011_Re96KnmMaoy73XzZT9PMHZfkvtQ]

I apologize for the delay. We have endured many setbacks during this COVID period, to include limited staff (due to numerous quarantines) and a general backlog from being shut down last year. We have been playing catch up for some time.

I have been in touch with my contact in Internal Affairs regarding your FOIA. Because the data you are requesting is so voluminous and encompasses a ten year period, it cannot be easily or quickly pulled. It will take approximately 24 hours of time for an employee in Internal Affairs to gather this. It will not be a dedicated job, i.e., they will have to work it in amongst their other daily duties. Using a low base pay for an IA employee, the minimum cost for this search would be $840.00. We would require a 25% deposit before commencing work. That cost could be higher (based upon who's doing the work), but it is doubtful to be lower.

In an effort to mitigate costs, if you were to narrow your search to say, three years, the costs would go down substantially, Instead of the last three years, you might choose to go back 10 years, five years and one year, to get an overall sampling of the decade, or select any three random years you desire. This is just a suggestion and, of course, we will honor your request in the manner you choose. Given the cost, I wanted to provide you with an alternative.

Please advise your wishes.

Thank you,

Beth Woodall
Legal Assistant
City of North Charleston
2500 City Hall Lane
North Charleston, SC 29406
bwoodall@northcharleston.org<mailto:bwoodall@northcharleston.org>
Tel: 843.740.2550
Fax: 843.745.1082

www.northcharleston.org<http://www.northcharleston.org/>
a great place to live, work, or play

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