Transparency News, 6/15/20

The National Freedom of Information Coalition and the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information issued a statement on law enforcement transparency and accountability in response to the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, and the following unrest and violence that erupted around the nation.  More than 50 organizations have signed on in support of the statement, which calls for states to enact reforms opening every aspect of the police misconduct oversight process to public scrutiny. The officer charged in the death of Mr. Floyd had 18 previous complaints filed against him.
(NOTE: The Virginia Coalition for Open Government is one of those 50+ organizations)
NFOIC

A Circuit Court judge has held a second closed hearing related to the temporary injunction against taking down a state-owned statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, and Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring has filed a formal request that all future proceedings take place on the public record. Richmond Circuit Judge Bradley Cavedo granted a temporary injunction on Monday to prevent the state from taking any action to remove the statue for 10 days. Herring, a Democrat, said his office was not informed of that hearing and only learned of it when questioned by the media. While parties bringing suit are not required to issue notice for a hearing on a temporary injunction, Herring said the state almost always gets advance warning in such cases. “Given the significance of this matter to our Commonwealth’s history,” he argues in Friday’s filing, the state should get 12 hours notice of any future hearing and a court reporter should be present.
The Washington Post

Of the 91 police shootings that caused a death or serious injury reported in Virginia since a law passed in 2016 making those reports mandatory, only one has been ruled unjustified, according to Virginia State Police data. That shooting happened in February 2018 when two Lynchburg police officers fired into a home at 1:30 a.m., striking the startled and unarmed homeowner, Walker Sigler, when he tried to shut the door after seeing people with guns on his porch.  But that encounter, the only officially improper shooting from mid-2016 through 2019, didn’t show up in the yearly Crime in Virginia report the General Assembly designated as the place to track shootings involving law enforcement officers. The Crime in Virginia report, which includes racial statistics for a wide variety of other data points, also does not identify the race of people shot by police. The law doesn’t require that information to be reported. In response to a Freedom of Information Act request, the State Police gave the Virginia Mercury an accompanying spreadsheet with some racial data, but it only covers police shootings in 2019. For some shootings, the subject’s race was not reported.
Virginia Mercury

There was a “last minute” meeting of the New College Institute Board of Directors on Thursday that was announced in a limited way and included two new delegates appointed this week by the legislature — much to the surprise of at least one of the board’s original members. Two Republicans who represent the area around Martinsville were replaced two days before the meeting by two Democrats from farther away, but one of them, Del. Danny Marshall (R-Danville), said he didn’t know about the change until minutes before he was to sign in for the virtual meeting. There is an entry for the meeting in the “News” section of NCI’s website but not on its “Events Calendar,” and apparently no notice was sent to any media outlets, as had been the practice. Traditionally, all boards of public entities have sent notices of meetings to local media where they are published in community calendars for public consumption. However, “we got some board guidelines from our attorney’s office and state attorney’s office, and the guidelines were kind of lax because of the pandemic,” NCI Human Relations and Board Relations Coordinator Chris Niblett said when asked why the meeting was not announced through any sort of public channel. “I know it may have been a little difficult to find on the website.”
Martinsville Bulletin

Virginia is on track to spend far more on buying masks, gloves, gowns and face shields than state officials had expected when they stepped into the global scramble for personal protective equipment. But the state is getting more PPE, too. So far, the state’s orders exceed $44 million under a contract with a small Norfolk company that was originally expected to cost $27 million, according to a Daily Press review of invoices obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
Daily Press