Recordsgate: The sequel

The Bainbridge Island Police Guild has blocked access to YouTube and certain dissident websites and local feeds. The crackdown comes in response to efforts by local blogs and other media to obtain records about an internal investigation into claimed misconduct against a  BIPD officer. 

Just kidding. For a minute there I confused international news with local developments.

What really happened this week is that the Guild amended its lawsuit against the City and me to include Kitsap Sun reporter Tristan Baurick as a defendant. The lawsuit, which was filed to prevent disclosure of an investigation by the Mercer Island Police Department into possible misconduct by Bainbridge police officer Steve Cain, was amended after Baurick made a request for Cain’s records.  A preliminary injunction hearing in Kitsap Superior Court is tentatively set for April 18th at 9 a.m. 

In a a separate development, I spoke to Leslie Koziara, of the state Records Management Division about records retention requirements. After island lawyer Kim Koenig made a formal complaint of misconduct  but before she filed her pre-lawsuit notice with the City, the BIPD destroyed certain records in Cain’s personnel file.

One of the destroyed files contained an investigation of a 2002 complaint against Cain for “inaccurate reporting.” That complaint was deemed to be unfounded.

Koziara points to the state’s records retention schedule which says, the “primary records” of internal investigations that find a complaint to be unfounded may be destroyed upon conclusion of the investigation (“secondary records” are to be destroyed when “obsolete or superceded”).     

An exception to that schedule is when the records relate to a possible legal action. In that case, the retention schedule says, “retain as required if information is related to pending or expected legal action.”

Thus it appears the BIPD could have lawfully destroyed the 2002 records at any time until Koenig began complaining about her experience–which was last September. The records were destroyed in January. (I say “appears” because RCW 41.06.450 sets out requirements for destruction of employee misconduct records, including a determination that all information in the complaint is false. I haven’t seen the records of the 2002 case other than a note on the “Master File List” that says “exonerated,” so it’s impossible to tell what was reviewed or determined.) In addition to legal requirements, however, there’s the matter of how a jury in the Koenig case might interpret the police department’s actions.

A different set of rules apply to sustained internal investigations, such as the sexual misconduct investigation recounted by another BIPD officer to the Puyallup Police Department’s investigators. In such cases, the primary records must be kept for three years, and a summary must go to the officer’s personnel file. Personnel files must be retained until six years after the termination of the officer’s employment. Further, the records “should be protected from damage or loss by off-site storage of a security copy, or by keeping a list that identifies the location of other copies inside and outside the agency.” 

Koziara says that although records retention rules are updated periodically, the basic rules are not likely to have changed much since 1991, the year the sustained incident of misconduct allegedly took place. But no documents about that incident have been released or even acknowledged by the City. Acting Chief Mark Duncan said he’s unaware of any such records in City personnel files.

The pending lawsuits–both Kim Koenig’s suit for damages, and the Guild’s suit to prevent records release–promise to flush out the details about the alleged misconduct, and the record maintenance habits of the BIPD.

In the meantime, here’s a bootleg copy of the suppressed Chris Rock YouTube video: How not to get your ass kicked by the police. (PC alert: it’s Chris Rock. Enough said.)