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Posted by: fscpd907

The time for HUPD to make its records public is long overdue


Published On 1/11/2008 1:01:40 AM

By THE CRIMSON STAFF




Late last month, the head of Connecticut’s Freedom of Information Commission issued a ruling that, if upheld by the full Commission, will require the Yale University Police Department to release records pertaining to the Department’s exercise of police powers. This development is a heartening step forward in a cause this newspaper has consistently advocated for: Deputized campus police departments must allow open access to their records equivalent to what is already required by law from municipal police departments.

The Connecticut ruling is especially relevant at Harvard, where the issue of free access to campus police records has been disputed for years. The Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) is, in terms of delegated state authority, almost identical to its Yale counterpart: Though operated by Harvard University, a private entity, HUPD officers are deputized by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts with “special state police powers.” HUPD officers can and do carry firearms, make arrests, execute warrants, and otherwise avail themselves of any standard police power at the disposal of a Boston police officer or Massachusetts state trooper. From the standpoint of a private citizen, there is simply no practical difference between a HUPD officer and a Cambridge officer.

It is well understood that police departments are required, upon request, to surrender records related to the exercise of their police powers, such as arrest and incident reports. Public scrutiny of such records is an indispensable tool for monitoring, and thereby preventing, any potential abuse of police powers. Nevertheless, campus police departments across the country—including HUPD—have argued that they, as subsidiaries of private entities, should not be bound by the same freedom of information standards that govern so-called “public” police departments. Accordingly, HUPD publicly releases only general statistics and sanitized event logs rather than original police reports—reports that would be unhesitatingly released by any other governmental police department.

In 2003, The Crimson sued HUPD on this point, arguing that because HUPD is vested by the state with full police powers—powers which hold jurisdiction over all citizens, not just those affiliated with a private institution—it essentially operates as an agent of the state, and should thus be forced to surrender police records upon request just as any other police department would. The University disagreed, arguing that since HUPD’s records are the property of the University, a private entity, they are beyond the reach of public record release laws.

Though we don’t believe that, for example, a private security firm with no police authority should have to release its internal records to the public, HUPD—like any other deputized campus police department—represents a patently different case. The distinction in this matter should not, as Harvard maintains, rest on who signs an officer’s paycheck, or to whom an officer answers, or which insignia an officer wears on his sleeve. Rather, it should rest on which powers are delegated by the state and applied by the agency, since this is the only distinction that materially affects the general public. If a law enforcement agency, irrespective of who maintains it, is empowered by the state to hold police authority indiscriminately over all citizens of the state, then the citizenry should be entitled to review that agency’s application of its delegated powers. And when a law enforcement agency, even a private one, accepts public police privileges, common sense dictates that it must waive some measure of its legal autonomy. To argue otherwise, as the University has, is to subvert the importance of public oversight of government authority.

Some University administrators worry that campus police records contain sensitive student information that, if distributed to members of the campus press, might breach these students’ privacy. Certainly, we recognize that HUPD performs many sensitive tasks—sometimes involving students who have not committed crimes—that a conventional police department would not. But the fact remains that any consideration for these other roles and their sensitivity is vastly outweighed by the need for public oversight over HUPD’s potent police powers.

Though The Crimson’s 2003 lawsuit was ultimately defeated in the Commonwealth’s highest court, the door was left open for the Legislature to modify state law so that all campus police departments in Massachusetts would have to comply with existing freedom of information standards. Thus far, the Legislature has largely remained stalemated on this issue, which is disappointing. If the Commonwealth’s legislators are truly committed to maintaining genuine oversight over those to whom it delegates extensive power, then they must work without delay to obligate all deputized campus police departments to open their records to full public inspection.

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Posted by: Delta784

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Posted by: PaulKersey

As long as Daddy is paying 50-60k a year, he will never know how many rapes and larcenies are happening at his kids school.

Money talks.

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Posted by: quality617

Same argument they used in court.

Apparently someone has filed legislation that would force Campus Pd and any State Specials working at hospitals to make their records public.

I'm not sure how I feel about it, since our records are private as well.

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Posted by: mpd61

Aw shucks!
Let em look. If you did your reports/investigations properly, then let the ADMIN fools answer for why crimes were never prosecuted fully, or victims were never afforded full protections/rights etc...

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Posted by: quality617

In our case, I'm all for disclosure. I have nothing to hide. The administration, however, needs to explain why when money is tight we somehow prosecute less. Hmmm.....

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Posted by: Edmizer1

The records should be public. This just gives the private colleges a chance to hide stuff. I used to work for a private college that loved to sweep major crimes under the rug when they could. I used to tell victims to call the DAs office and tell them that they had reported the crime to us. It used to piss off the administration when the DAs office would call asking about the status of the investigation of a certain crime they wanted to go away. To anyone in a college pd where this is happening, this is a great technique.

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Posted by: BrickCop

Chadwick assaults someone off campus: A&B, possible criminal charges.

Chadwick assaults someone on campus: A disagreement, subject to mediation.

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Posted by: soxrock75

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrickCop Chadwick assaults someone off campus: A&B, possible criminal charges. Chadwick assaults someone on campus: A disagreement, subject to mediation.

Chadwick, that's a good one. I would have went with "Spaulding"

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Posted by: Kilvinsky

I've always been curious as to what extra information they want or need. The logs pretty much sum up everything, but what the hell, it won't effect MY paycheck...

....and won't it be just a friggin' riot when a report about a Crimson reporter or better yet, the President of the Crimson is the first one to hit page 1? Now THAT I would LOVE to see.

oh, and Delta, that picture being used in this thread is PRICELESS!

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Posted by: fscpd907

Yale Police Records Made Public


Published On 2/15/2008 1:46:48 AM

By ALEXANDRA PERLOFF-GILES

Crimson Staff Writer


The Freedom of Information Commission of Connecticut voted unanimously Wednesday to subject the Yale University Police Department to the same rules as public police departments after a New Haven public defender argued that the police have been exhibiting a double standard in their arrests.

The decision requires the Yale police to make their records publicly accessible—the standard applied to all government agencies.

“If you dress like a cop and you act like a cop, you should be accountable like a cop,” said Janet R. Perrotti, the New Haven public defender who brought the complaint against the Yale police.

Last spring, a black teenager was arrested and taken to jail for riding his bicycle on a sidewalk just outside the Yale campus. Perrotti, who suspected “police misconduct” and called the arrest “clearly a case of racial profiling,” said she was denied access to certain information because of the offender’s age.

Perrotti—who dubbed the Yale police a “secret society”—filed a freedom of information request in June asking for the information.

“I wanted access to the police personnel records,” Perrotti said. “I didn’t want any personal information. I just wanted to see if there were any records of misconduct.”

Yale has now released the records in this case, according to Perrotti. But as for the larger precedent, Perrotti said she expects that attorneys for Yale will appeal the ruling and that the issue will be fought through the courts.

“I anticipate that when all this is said and done, this little hassling of a kid on a bicycle will cost Yale $200,000,” she said.

The result of the New Haven hearing stands in contrast to the outcome of a Massachusetts lawsuit filed by The Crimson, which sought to force the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) to release detailed crime reports.

In 2006, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in University’s favor.

Similar to its Yale counterpart in terms of delegated state authority, HUPD is a private entity deputized by the Commonwealth.

HUPD officers are designated with a “special” status, although they have many of the same rights as public policemen, including the right to carry firearms, to make arrests, and to issue warrants.

Despite these similarities between campus police and traditional departments, university forces have been considered subsidiaries of private entities and thus have not been required to release police reports to the public.

But Wednesday’s ruling established a precedent that places campus police departments within the scope of public record release laws.

After The Crimson lost its lawsuit in 2006, former State Senator Jarrett T. Barrios ’90 sponsored a bill that would force campus police departments to comply with the freedom-of-information standards of public agencies.

“It’s unbelievably hypocritical to give a force that kind of power and not hold them accountable,” Crimson President Malcom A. Glenn ’09 said yesterday.

But Harvard has expressed concern about making all police records publicly available.

Kevin Casey, Harvard’s director of federal and state relations, said yesterday that some individuals might not seek help from police if they believed their problems would become “front page news.”

The Yale police, for their part, may face broader disclosure requirements than HUPD due to differences between Massachusetts and Connecticut laws. “Connecticut law defines a public [agency] differently than Massachusetts law, by including within its rubric non-public agencies that are the functional equivalent of a public agency,” said Robert A. Bertsche, The Crimson’s attorney, in an e-mailed statement.

Yale police also have full jurisdiction throughout New Haven, operating in partnership with New Haven police officers in a different enforcement scheme than HUPD.

The Yale police’s expanded jurisdiction played a role in the Freedom of Information Commission’s ruling.

Freedom of Information Commission Public Education Officer Thomas A. Hennick said that if Yale declines to appeal the ruling, then “the precedent would be set that they are the equivalent of a public agency.”

Andrew M. Mangino, editor-in-chief of the Yale Daily News, called the ruling “really a big step forward.”

“I think it will promote the notion that even private institutions should be subject to the same sort of transparency that our society has recently put on public ones, and that will add a great deal to our reporting,” he said.

Mangino declined to comment on whether the Daily News would takes sides in an appeal.

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Posted by: HB7220PD

The crimson paper sued and loss this situation in court either last year or the year before that. I doubt they will win. The university is always ready for something like this.

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