Tuesday, January 08, 2008

But we're the po-lice, we don't have to tell you who we beat the crap out of!

Beaumont city council makes us think there's something to hide:

In a 6-0 vote the City Council agreed that City Attorney Tyrone Cooper should pursue a lawsuit against Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott regarding an Enterprise request for Beaumont Police Department use-of-force reports.

[...]

Last month, Abbott issued a letter ruling that said the Police Department must release portions of its use-of-force reports.

In response, the city on Dec. 31 filed a lawsuit in an Austin district court to not release the information the city says is confidential.

Basically the Beaumont PD says that use-of-force reports are part of personnel files so they're not open to Freedom of Information Act requests.

For those that don't live here, Beaumont PD has a bit of a reputation as being... um... rough on people. And it looks like they don't want us to know about it.

If they don't want us to know, then they must have something to hide, right? Who knows, maybe they don't, but this move certainly makes it look that way.

I just hope that the case gets tossed out and the records open up.

<sarcasm> And that I don't get the crap kicked out of me for writing this if I get pulled over. </sarcasm>

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