Louisville Metro Police Department illegally withholding, destroying records, group says

Louisville Metro Police is being sued over concerns about its record-keeping practices and ability to provide access to public information in a timely manner, a concern that was recently echoed by the state's Attorney General's Office.

A lawsuit filed late Wednesday in Jefferson Circuit Court on behalf of the 490 Project, an organization that focuses on racial equity in Louisville, alleges LMPD has violated state laws in three different ways.

The lawsuit claims the violations include:

• Failing to keep records of complaints made against officers for an adequate length of time
• Failing to respond and adhere to requests for public information within the timeframe required by state law
• Failing to abide by the Open Records Act by illegally creating definitions of complaints that allow for earlier disposal of records

Related news:Louisville Metro falls further behind in releasing public records as Kentucky law requires

Claims made in a lawsuit represent only one side of the case. LMPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"There is a big trust deficit between the public and LMPD, and LMPD’s refusal to abide by the Open Records Act doesn’t help that deficit," said Rick Adams, the attorney representing the 490 Project in the suit.

The 490 Project has spent months trying to gain access to complaints made against LMPD officers, to either be told such records don't exist or to be ignored, according to the suit.

In May the group submitted a request for all documents related to complaints - formal or informal - made against LMPD officials since April 1, 2020.

For a portion of that time period, LMPD had a policy allowing for the destruction of informal complaints after 90 days - despite a state statute requiring the complaints to be held for two years. No formal complaints should have been destroyed during the time period, due to both LMPD policy and state law.

More coverage:Kentucky attorney general finds Louisville violated open records law several times

Another law requires LMPD to respond to record requests within five days or to acknowledge each request within five days to explain why the deadline won't be met, and to establish a new deadline.

Yet, the 490 Project did not hear back for more than two weeks and when the department did respond, it said there were over 300 complaints that needed to be reviewed, researched and redacted before they were disclosed, the suit says. The department stated it would fulfill the request by July, according to the suit.

About five months after the initial request and nearly three months after LMPD's self-imposed deadline, the group has not received any records pertaining to the first request nor another three requests made in May and June, according to the lawsuit.

"It's really important that LMPD abides to the Open Records Act," said Cara Tobe, an organizer of the 490 Project, which was founded in 2020. "Without it, they can operate behind closed doors with no accountability or transparency to the community."

Aside from failing to fulfill requests, the suit also takes issue with the department's practice of destroying complaint records against officers and with how the department differentiates between formal and informal complaints.

While the state's record retention schedule makes a distinction between the two types of complaints and how long each needs to be kept, the Open Records Act does not, Adams said.

It's been the law for decades that agencies can't avoid producing open records by "creating arbitrary labels," he said.

Currently, the department is holding onto formal complaints for five years and informal complaints for two years, according to the most recent contract with the local FOP. Those timelines follow the state's retention schedule, but the suit argues all complaints should be kept for five years, given the distinction shouldn't exist, per the records act.

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Not holding onto these records, the group is arguing, prevents the department and the public from establishing whether a bad pattern by an employee exists.

"There's nothing sexy or cool about record retention policies but it's really important," Tobe said. "Without holding onto these records, the general public doesn't know when certain things happen or if red flags are being waived about a bad apple."

Without properly maintaining these records and abiding by when the law says they must be released, Tobe said many of the department's wrongdoings would go uncovered.

"We would have had no idea about the truth behind Breonna Taylor’s murder," she said. "We would have no clue about the Explorer’s program scandal. Journalists won't be able to do their job. The public won’t know" what's going on.

The suit is seeking that the department immediately fulfills the group's record requests; pay for costs acquired by the group due to filing the suit; pay the statutory penalty established for violating the Open Records Act; and remove the distinction between formal and informal complaints.

This is the second time in a matter of months that the city and LMPD has been scrutinized for its actions relating to open records requests.

In August, Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s office ruled in favor of The Courier Journal in its appeal that argued Louisville Metro Government violated the Kentucky Open Records Act by failing to respond to requests from Courier Journal reporters six times within the required five days.

Five requests were for records from the Louisville Metro Department of Corrections and one was for records from LMPD. The city has 90 days − or until mid-November − to appeal the decision.

Contact reporter Krista Johnson at kjohnson3@gannett.com.