Police Liability payout record request from Sun Sentinel (Indian Creek Village Police Department)

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the Florida Sunshine Law, I hereby request the following records:

I hope this message finds you well. This is a public records request from a member of a media organization, pursuant to Florida Statute 119. In furtherance of an article investigating police misconduct payouts across the county over the past decades, we are seeking documents that show how much your municipal corporation, its legal representatives, or its liability insurance carriers have paid out in civil court since 01/01/2010 because of the actions of its police professionals.

To that end, we kindly request the electronic delivery of an excel spreadsheet with the following information:
- An identifying number for the claim
- The loss date
- An incident indicator description (such as “excessive force, k-9 bite, false arrest/imprisonment, etc.)
- Incurred expenses
- Incurred liability
- Incurred legal expenses
- Paid legal expenses
- Paid total
- Incurred total

This records pull should be interpreted to cover both federal and state court claims. If some of the above figures are not available because of your accounting practices, please endeavor to provide us with as full a picture as possible of the $$$ paid out by your municipality due to lawsuits against its police officers over the past ten years.

Upon request, we can provide a spreadsheet obtained from the BSO that can serve as an example and guide for what we are looking for. Please do feel free to reach out via email or phone should you have any questions.

Very Best
Mario Alejandro Ariza
Federal Courts Reporter
South Florida Sun Sentinel
786.210.6548

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 business days.

Sincerely,

Mario Ariza

Dear Marilane,

We've had this same request fulfilled by ever single municipal corporation in Broward County that operates a police department. Would you mind explaining your answer a bit more? Sometimes folks narrowly attempt to construe the request, and we get our attorney involved and that sorts it out. But it's also possible that you have no pay outs over the past ten years, and I'd like be certain before getting our lawyers in on this.

Best
Mario Ariza
Federal Courts Reporter
South Florida Sun Sentinel

Dear Marilane,

Just following up on this public records requests.

Best
Mario