On a similar note, it's a shame that erasing tapes regarding matters still under investigation in the name of a retention policy doesn't appear to be considered as seriously as destroying evidence should be.
They didn't erase the tapes though. It sounds more likely that they just automatically err on the side of 'provide the least amount of information to people outside of the precinct as possible.' So when someone submits an information request that's past the '90 day retention policy' they just automatically deny it without checking whether or not it really was erased hoping that the request ends there.
The rest of the lies are just a bunch of PR backpedaling because someone called them on their bluff.
But they said that they did. I'd prefer it if they'd be in more trouble for destroying evidence on something that is ongoing than claiming a retention policy. This would provide an incentive for them not to claim that data is destroyed.
> But they said that they did. I'd prefer it if they'd be in more trouble for destroying evidence on something that is ongoing than claiming a retention policy. This would provide an incentive for them not to claim that data is destroyed.
It's not like the police station operates as a single unit (always in sync). There are multiple people doing multiple jobs. It's entirely possible that the person fielding these information requests didn't know that this was part of something on-going.
In reality, it wasn't even on-going anymore. He filed the information request once the court case was over, and before he filed the current suit against the police. At that point there was no way for the police to know that he would file a suit against them, and to their knowledge all of the pending cases that involved those recordings were over with.
I'm sticking with the idea that the person fielding these requests automatically denies requests over 90 days without checking whether or not the recordings were actually removed. This could be due to formal (or informal) department policy, or just individual laziness.
Rachner was wearing a faded t-shirt, jeans and leather jacket, and didn't remotely resemble the guy who misfired the ball, who wore English golfing duds, a Tattersall's hat and fake orange sideburns.
Doesn't sound like he had much to do with the golfing incident, the police was just ID'ing everyone they came across, he just had the audacity to refuse to comply.
It sounds like he was part of the 'urban golfing' group. He wasn't arrested for hitting the guy with the ball:
Arrested instead, based on victim identification, was
security researcher and computer cryptologist David
Hulton of Seattle. The city attorney dropped the
misdemeanor assault charge, but only after Hulton spent
$2,500 on a lawyer. Hulton has joined Rachner in his
project, helping to pay for attorney Stockmeyer's
expenses, because he said, "I want to effect change."
The guy that got hit by the ball also didn't seem to think it was as big of a deal as the police made it out to be:
The sponge ball victim Gabriel Scott Clark, then a
Seattle coffee house worker and now living in Miami,
said he was surprised by the multiple arrests: "I didn't
think it would be that big of an issue. I was just mad
at the one guy."
The police never even got the right guy:
Marcus Johnson of Los Angeles apologetically admitted in
an interview that he sliced the ball that hit the victim.
Police never detained or identified him, but he and others
said Johnson was "in the thick of things" when police
arrived.
If you'd read the article you would have known that the accused who later "stuck it to the man" was not the person who committed the act which got police involved, he was just an innocent bystander who refused to compromise his rights. The person who caused the ruckus behind the trouble was never arrested.
It obviously depends on the local, state and federal laws where you live. In this case, the Supreme Court of Washington State says that it's unconstitutional because it gives too much power to law enforcement. It could be different elsewhere.
