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NYCLU sues State Police for public documents
Brendan J. Lyons reports in the Times Union that State Police are continuing to hide disciplinary records from public view, this time in a court battle with the New York Civil Liberties Union. The non-profit group has filed a petition in state Supreme Court in Albany to order the State Police to disclose the names of troopers and investigators in disciplinary cases that involve misconduct complaints that the agency determined were unsubstantiated. In 2020 the state legislature repealed a statute that had prevented the release of those state police disciplinary records for 44 years in New York. Bobby Hodgson, a supervising attorney at the NYCLU, said, “Our initial analysis of the State Police’s misconduct records exposed a massive number of misconduct investigations and uses of force, but that analysis was hindered by the department’s pervasive inappropriate redactions.... By keeping officer names secret, the State Police is preventing New Yorkers from having a more comprehensive understanding of systemic issues and possible patterns of officer misconduct. After the repeal of 50-a, the law specifically mandates the disclosure of officer names as part of its promise to bring full transparency to law enforcement records.” Read more about this story in the Times Union.