The SFPD was the only one to actually comply with the law but the Berkeley PD didn’t do so badly. This morning I finally received a (partial) response to my request to the Long Beach PD, and you can read the yield here. There’s nothing really that interesting here; just more homelessness and back-slapping.
The City of Long Beach has redacted a bunch of stuff, including names and photographs, which they almost certainly have no legal right to do. The otherwise helpful Byron Blair neglected to cite exemptions to justify redactions, which is required by the law. If I cared at all about what goes on in Long Beach now that Acres of Books is gone I’d fight them on this, but there’s really no point.
On the other hand, the LBPD does have an actual web page to explain how to make CPRA requests. That’s a bonus, although it has some misinformation on it. In any case, 142 days is an awfully long time (although to be fair, Officer Blair did exchange a number of emails with me over those five months discussing my request). In any case, as I’ve noted before, it’s certainly no coincidence that San Francisco and Berkeley both have municipal sunshine ordinances whereas Long Beach and Los Angeles, whose police departments are so very dilatory in their responses, do not.
Image of Acres of Books is via Wikimedia.
