Georgia Open Records Act and SCMPD

SCMPD may be fighting a losing battle trying to get correct information out via a blog verus the Savannah Morning News, but we do want to correct a number of things that were written in the article today (January 6).

The second sentence of the story read, "Since December 24, the police department has not made daily incidents reports available to reporters or the public". This is simply wrong.

Reports are available, through regular means at the report window - like always for both media and the public. This has never changed. The article goes on to say that only police have access to reports - again, untrue - these reports are indeed available.

In fact, if you read the Savannah Morning News ... the public safety summary regularly says, "according to a police report". For example, on January 6 (almost 2 weeks after the SMN accuses police of not making reports available), the Public Safety Summary in the paper had a headline about teens being charged in a purse snatching. The article states, "The robber then hopped in a gold van and took off, prompting a witness - identified in the police report as ..."

In fact, visit headquarters during business hours, and you will see people getting copies of their reports.

From the beginning of this issue coming to light with our transition to a fully automated system, we have been open and willing to discuss options with everyone involved. We are working on various work-around options to provide media with a listing of all incidents for the past 24-hours.

The article also said, "Judy Pal said the reports would not be available because of the department's transition to an automated report system." In truth, to quote from the e-mail:

"As you all should be aware by now, the SCMPD daily incident clipboard will no longer be available starting today ... You will still be able to access reports from the Records Clerks."

Finally, the newspaper mentions that descriptions of suspects and other details are not available on the Daily Significant Incident Report - the Report is not meant to replace reporters coming down and getting copies of the reports.

SCMPD intentionally includes the CRN so reporters can get copies of those reports and get full details. The purpose of the Daily Significant Incident report is not to REPLACE reports, but to give reporters and the public a heads up about incidents. This is a practice the department has put in place to help during this transition.

The department is in full compliance with Georgia Open Records laws and we welcome the discussion about our efforts to keep the media and public informed. However, we are completely frustrated by the inaccuracies conveyed by this article. SCMPD has requested a correction or clarification be printed, just as we did regarding the inaccurate headline about records being "sealed" (see previous post).