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.
