Jan 30 '13 9:06 am
Police Complaints Sues City for Withholding Public Records
Police Complaints has filed a civil complaint against the City of Albuquerque for illegally suppressing information about police misconduct.
We reported last month how the city has begun censoring citizen complaints against police officers. Citizen police complaints are public records in New Mexico and the public has the right to inspect them. The city continues to provide the records on request, but removes virtually all the specific information. The nearly blank pages are completely useless to anyone investigating police misconduct.
Now Police Complaints brought suit against the city to force them to provide proper records. From the KOAT News story by Anna Velasquez, City faces suit over document redacting:
The city is the subject of a lawsuit that claims officials are withholding information the public has the right to see.
Online watchdog group Policecomplaints.info, which investigates law enforcement departments and officers across the country, said that despite repeated complaints, the city continues to improperly withhold public information.
Anna Martinez has filed a lawsuit against the city on behalf of the watchdog group.
"Everything is redacted other than the officer's name, and it's not even a full name there that you can see," she said, looking at one of the documents in question. "There is no other information within this citizen's complaint."
Anna Martinez
Anna Velasquez
KUNM Radio