Is OPD surveilling local activists?

topic : police misconduct

On May 1, 2005, two detectives of the Olympia Police Department took digital pictures of participants of a street march downtown. The next day, Copwatch Organizer Drew Hendricks requested those photographs from the City of Olympia. The photographs are city public records, and as such should be releasable to the public unless they are currently part of an active case file.

The detectives chose instead to delete the photographs prior to the Copwatch request, essentially denying citizens' oversight of their photographic focus on that day. Washington State statutes describe the penalties for unlawful nondisclosure of public records as being subject to a $5 - $100 fine per day, for the entire period that they are denied, fines payable to each requestor.

If the records were unlawfully destroyed, the penalties described are a $1000 fine or up to 5 years in prison, or both. Detailed schedules of record retention policies, published by the Secretary of State's office, seem to show that the records in question would normally be kept for about 18 or 19 months if they were created in May (current year plus one year). The records, when they would finally be destroyed, would also be described in a memorandum that should also be available for review, in normal circumstances. That document has not been found by OPD records clerks so far.

One of the May Day participants described to Copwatchers how the two detectives discussed her tattoo, and tried to take pictures of it. (The tattoo was positioned on her lower back, just above her butt.)

Many who were there believed that the detectives were taking not law enforcement photos - which would show the size of the crowd or particular behavior - but intelligence photos (identifying marks, faces, names and roles in organizing). The First Amendment to the US Constitution of 1789 seems to discourage the kind of activity which would chill the right of "the people peaceably to assemble for a redress of grievances." Yet somehow our political points of view do not seem to be accorded these basic protections.

City Attorney Bob Sterbank claimed in a City Council meeting that the schedules cited by Olympia Copwatch were not the ones used by the City of Olympia, but his claim was contracted by Jeanelle Kirry, the Office Supervisor who would apply the schedules to OPD documents and records.

Copwatch is considering pursuit of the case in court. If you know of an attorney who would be willing to file the papers and follow the case pro bono, please contact us at 870-3127.