Patrick Morrison, Associated counsel, Department of safety and homeland security
Dear Mr. Morrison,
I demand production of the requested records of the Gregory Parker arrest at no charge, as the amount demanded is unreasonable.
In your correspondence by email April 12, 2021, you say as follows:
Your request produced one hundred thirty-three (133) minutes of video footage. Pursuant to Department General Order No. 712-1, this Department charges $31.25 per quarter hour for redaction of audio/video files. The first quarter hour of labor relating to video redaction is free. Therefore, the total cost for labor and copies of this video is $245.83.
The amount is unreasonable because redaction is unreasonable, a causeless imposition upon the requestor impeding his request for records.
The cameras are turned on at the beginning of an encounter, and off at the end of it. Finding the file in a database or from a list for delivery to requestor cannot be considered a redaction, and I object to that suggestion in your letter and demand delivery forthwith.
Mr. Parker says he gives no private information in the encounter — no social security number, for example — that would have to be redacted. He is being criminally charged. Details about his arrest such as his domicile are public record at sessions court clerk’s office, which copies I have. He says he gave none of the information in the court record to your trooper, in the video and audio file.
No privileged audio or video information about the defendant is in the video or audio file by Trooper Herring or his DOSHS colleagues involved in the arrest. Therefore, nothing needs to be redacted internally to any video or audio file regarding Mr. Parker, and it is unreasonable to assert that there needs be.
But DOSHS troopers are involved, too.
As for images or oral information about troopers, they are public officers working in public, and do not give private, personal, sensitive or secret information while working an arrest. Therefore, it is unreasonable to redact anything about their identities, addresses, SSNs or other personal information in this arrest.
I demand release of these videos immediately by your routine method of digital delivery.
Because trooper Herring used violence in this arrest, I demand that no statements or acts by any officer be redacted, eliminated, edited, altered and demand that the record be delivered to me without any sound or image being deleted as to actions by officer Herring or any other in your department.
Redaction means deleting and cutting internally to a document. It is unreasonable for the department to attempt to charge for finding and selecting the documents I am demanding, and I demand your department make internally no changes, edits, deletions, substitutions, redactions or adjustments to the evidence I have a right to have delivered forthwith.
