Request for Individual Level Arrest & Citation Records 2009-2018

To Whom It May Concern:

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

I am the founder of Raheem, an independent service for reporting police conduct in the United States. We believe that making the behavior of the police visible in the form of meaningful data—especially as it impacts communities of color—will lead to systemic changes and ultimately a world where we all feel safe to live and love freely.

Raheem is a non-profit funded by My Brother’s Keeper Alliance of the Obama Foundation, Kresge Foundation, and Luminate, a philanthropic organization founded by Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay.

This letter serves as a records request. If needed, we can modify our request based on your agency’s technological and/or personnel limitations.

A detailed list of the requested data elements is provided below. Please note that we are requesting individual-level data in digital form (excel, svs, vector PDF, etc.) from 2009-2018. Please provide codebooks/data dictionaries for all data requested. Please consider this our best case scenario list, as we realize not all points may be fulfilled through this request. We are happy to discuss this further.

__________________________________________

Raheem requests individual-level data for the following data elements regarding all arrests between January 1st, 2009 and December 31st, 2018:

Arrest number or ORI
Arrestee’s name
Arrestee’s DOB
Arrestee’s race
Arrestee’s sex
Offense date
Arrest date
Location of arrest (e.g. address, block, or centroid XY coordinates)
Arresting charge description
Arresting charge severity
Arraignment date
Case referred to prosecutor (Y/N)
Date referred to prosecutor

___________
Raheem also requests the following information on an individual basis for the years 2009-2018:

Citation Level: (excludes non-criminal traffic infractions, and violation of local and county ordinances)
Citation number or ORI
Citation date
Location where citation was given out (e.g. address, block, or centroid XY coordinates)
Charge description
Charge severity
Fine amount (if applicable)
Fine payment (Y/N)
Fine payment date
________________
Raheem also requests the following information on an annual basis for the calendar years 2009-2018:

Office Level
Number of full-time sworn law enforcement officers
Annual agency budget

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 10 calendar days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Brandon Anderson

To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following request, copied below. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.