Gabe Schneider, Voice of San Diego, May 12, 2020
The University of California system is aware of more than 200 incidents involving police use of force on its 10 campuses in recent years. Nearly half of those incidents resulted in the injury of an officer or another person.
That’s despite California Senate Bill 1421, a landmark transparency law that went into effect last year. It requires police to turn over internal records involving police shootings and use of force, and instances of sexual assault or lying by on-duty officers.
The unwillingness of UC campuses to release more of its investigations to Voice of San Diego over the last 16 months drives home an important point about public records: The agencies in possession of documents have significant say over what is and isn’t releasable based on how they interpret laws.
In this instance, the dispute seems to rest on the meaning of a single word.
When it comes to use of force cases, California lawmakers intended for police agencies to release records involving death or great bodily injury, but they never defined the term “great.”
One of the case files that is being withheld involved a man who broke an ankle and leg. A short description of the incident provided by a UC-wide policing commission shows the man was pushed by a campus officer.
When another campus was provided with evidence that it may be wrongly withholding records, an administrator promised to look into it — and then never followed up.
Different Standards
The University of California maintains 10 state-sanctioned police forces, one for each of its campuses, with a total staff of 439 officers as of last year.
Voice of San Diego filed requests for SB 1421-related records at the UC administrative office and at each individual campus. In the end, only three campuses provided records: UC Davis, UC Merced, UC Santa Barbara (UC Riverside indicated that they held one record, but said they could not release it during an active investigation). The records date from 2004 to present. UC San Diego, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC Irvine, UC Santa Cruz and UC San Francisco all provided no records of police misconduct disclosable under the law.
Officials at the top of the UC system also contended they had few, if any, records they could disclose under the law.
“UCSD (and nearly every other campus, as I recall) has already informed other CPRA requestors that it has no records under SB 1421,” Dan Scannell, the systemwide Public Records Act coordinator for the University of California Office of the President, said in a February 2019 email.
The following month, however, Scannel closed the university-wide request for all SB1421 records. He said that since Voice of San Diego had requested records at all UC campuses individually, there was no need for the university-wide request. Scannel noted that any records of use of force “that did not result in great bodily injury” would not be disclosed.
But in addition to the individual records obtained from each campus, Voice of San Diego obtained records compiled by a UC-wide commission on policing. Those records, which include data just from 2016 and 2017, indicate that in at least 80 instances, police or a subject had sustained an injury. For example:
“In progress crime subject ran from officer into a chain link fence and fell bounced back onto officer and officer pushed him and he fell on ground receiving a broken ankle and leg.”
“Subject 1 receive[d] a large abrasion to elbow. Subject 2 had bleeding in the inside of his mouth. Officer receive an abrasion to his elbow.”
“Subject resisting arrest one officer received abrasion/gash to left knee, second officer receive abrasion to knee. Subject also received an abrasion to his knee.”
No records describing instances like the ones above were provided to Voice of San Diego.
Defining ‘Great Bodily Injury’
Publicly available documents also suggest that campuses are withholding case files involving “great bodily injury.”
In 2013, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge argued that UCLA police used excessive force when officers slammed him onto his car for a seatbelt violation and handcuffed him. Turns out that man was David S. Cunningham III, the former president of the Los Angeles Police Commission, who was appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger to oversee police use of force cases and others. In 2014, UCLA and Cunningham settled the case for $500,000.*
UCLA did not provide Voice of San Diego any records of that incident...
Full story at https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/public-safety/uc-campuses-have-disclosed-virtually-no-records-under-police-transparency-law/
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On the Cunningham case, see:
http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2014/07/press-release-on-judge-cunningham-case.html; http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2013/11/an-arresting-development.html; http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2013/11/unsolicited-follow-up-for-our.html; and http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2014/07/judge-arrested-by-campus-police-for.html.
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