We announced the scheduling of the hearing on our Bad Government in Arkansas Twitter and Facebook pages.
That hearing was held today and our publisher won his case against Chief Kenton Tremar Buckner, who was noticeably absent to the consternation of Judge Wendell Griffen.
Griffen noted that Buckner had been properly served notice of the suit back on June 13th, and should have been expecting a hearing to be held in seven days at the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act provides.
As the service of the summons was made on Buckner on June 13th by the Pulaski County Sheriff's Office, but not filed until June 18th, the hearing was set as soon as it could to be in compliance with the AFOIA.
It was stated that Buckner was on vacation, but our sources at LRPD advise that he was in actually in town at the time of the hearing and was not scheduled to leave Little Rock until the afternoon.
Judge Griffen once sent bailiff's to bring Buckner to a hearing that involved him that he decided to skip.
In his order, Judge Griffen ordered LRPD to provide photos all uniformed, plain clothed, non-undercover officer to our publisher by 4:00 p.m.
Judge Griffen directed our publisher and city attorney's to provide written confirmation that the photos had been turned over.
At 3:39 p.m. our publisher received an email from deputy city attorney Rick Hogan advising that a disk with the photos was on it's way to his office at city hall.
At 3:50 p.m. our publisher replied to Hogan's email.
At 3:55 p.m. city attorney Tom Carpenter called our publisher and advised that they had 443 pictures of officers on CD's but they were missing approximately 75 photos from two recruit classes that were on a separate server than the 443 photos they had ready to hand over.
Carpenter explained they could not located those 75 photos but would have them by Monday. He stated that he thought the photos were being delivered to the courthouse and our publisher advised that he thought they were to be given to him directly.
Carpenter then called a second time at 3:59 p.m. as our publisher was getting into his vehicle to say that the photos were at his office.
Our publisher obtained two CD's containing the 443 photos and a copy of a letter and affidavit that stated all photos had been provided. No mention was made of the missing 73 photos.
In fact the envelope in which the two CD's were placed has "All photos" written on it.
Our publisher faxed a letter to Judge Griffen disputing the accuracy of the affidavit and has a recording of both Carpenter and Hogan explaining the "missing photos" and their assurance that they will have them by Monday.
Right.
LRPD Sgt. Angela Everett provided a false statement, under oath, concerning the photos.
Judge Griffen will not be happy when he gets to work on Monday morning.
Stay tuned for updates.
#TimeForChange #CleanOutLRCityHall
***UPDATE 6/30/18***
On June 29th, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette published a story by reporter Ginny Monk.
Monk's story was riddled with inaccurate information including the statement that our publisher had confirmed that he had received the photographs.
That was a factual misstatement. He never told anyone from the ARDEMGAZ that he had obtained the photographs from LRPD pursuant to Judge Griffen's Order.
The statement by Lt. Ford was also a lie. LRPD did not comply with Judge Griffen's order in that they did not turn over all the requested photos - they had 73 they could not locate and Sgt. Everett lied in her affidavit to the court in that she failed to disclose that not all photos were turned over pursuant to Judge Griffen's order and that they had an additional 73 photographs that would have to be provided at a later date.
Lt. Ford also lied under oath. That will be covered in a future post.
In fact, he was speaking with ARDEMGAZ reporter John Lynch as he arrived at Little Rock City Hall to pick up CD's containing the photographs. He had to cut the call short as he had to get the CD's from city attorney's then get over to LRPD to pick up another FOI response before 5:00 p.m.
Once our publisher returned from picking up the 2 FOI responses, he read Monk's article and posted a comment.
Our publisher incorrectly stated in his response to Monk's article that 49 photos were not able to be located. 49 was the number of photos of undercover officers that were not requested as they are exempt under the AFOIA and were not sought in his request. The number of photographs that LRPD could not locate by 4:00 p.m. was 73. As we previously reported those 73 photos were on a different server than the 443 that were turned over. We suspect that they were actually on a computer at the training academy and they could not access them as personnel had already taken off for the weekend.
The ARDEMGAZ published another story today that was also contained inaccurate information.
LRPD did not follow Judge Griffens' order and provide all the photos. And their numbers concerning the photos are wrong as well.
Our publisher collected 443 photos, not 419, and they could not locate 75 additional photos and city attorney Carpenter and his deputy Hogan told him that those remaining 75 photos would be turned over on July 2nd.
The CD labeled LRPD pictures contained 118 images.
The unlabeled CD contained two folders.
The folder titled Photographs contained 217 images.
