From the Greensboro News and Record (12/13/08): The public will be allowed to view selected portions of a controversial Greensboro police department report, a Guilford County Superior Court judge ruled this week.
Guilford County Superior Court Judge John O. Craig told Greensboro city attorneys they have to release parts of the Risk Management Associates report, an investigation into the administration of former police Chief David Wray.
Some parts, including the main body of the report and memos about investigations into certain officers, can continue to be withheld under the state’s personnel privacy law, Craig told the attorneys.
The documents will be released as part of a public records lawsuit against the city brought by bloggers Sam Spagnola and Roch Smith .
They requested dozens of documents surrounding various controversies in the Greensboro Police Department.
They sued the city in March after it failed to turn them over.
Spagnola and Smith said they requested the records in hopes of clearing up some of the long-standing debates regarding the Greensboro Police Department.
“Our opinion is the truth is in the papers,” Spagnola said. “It’s in the documents.”
The report by Risk Management Associates, or RMA, reviewed allegations that black police officers were targeted by the department.
City attorneys argued that the RMA report was a personnel document, so it should be withheld.
Craig told the city attorneys that parts of the document would not fall under that exemption and should be released, including a portion about Beverly Hinson , the former wife of a Greensboro police officer who complained about her home being under surveillance.
The city will also release a redacted version of the executive summary and introduction to the RMA report.
Parts of the RMA report had already been released, city attorney Jo Peterson-Buie said , although the city had not identified them as portions of the RMA report.
The RMA report items and the minutes from some closed sessions of the City Council could be released as early as next week , Peterson-Buie said Friday.
The bloggers didn’t get all the documents they sought. Most notably, they failed to get the “black book,” a photo lineup containing black police officers.
The city argued that it was “purportedly compiled for the purpose of solving an alleged sexual assault,” according to an affidavit signed by City Manager Mitchell Johnson, and therefore did not have to be released.
Spagnola said that statement from the manager, which he says contradicts earlier comments about the book, was the “biggest victory.”
“That was the big deal with me,” Spagnola said Friday. “I always thought that was sort of bogus.”
Johnson has denied he contradicted himself. The statement was based on the information from the officer who compiled the lineup, he said, and the city has no other information that it was used in an improper way.
“All I can tell you is that we haven’t been able to figure anything else out,” Johnson said.