Phillips, 032218 NEAGO, 18-R-106

• Case Date: March 22, 2018
• Court: Nebraska

Juanita Phillips No. 18-R-106 State of Nebraska Office of the Attorney General March 22, 2018          Lincoln Police Department; Juanita Phillips, Petitioner          Dear Ms. Phillips:          This letter is in response to your petition received by this office on March 6, 2018, in which you sought our assistance in obtaining certain public records from the City of Lincoln Police Department ("Department"). Upon receipt of your petition, we wrote to you requesting a copy of your original public records request and any other underlying documentation associated with your request, which we received on March 7.1 We subsequently contacted Assistant City Attorney Rick Tast, who handled your request, and advised him of the opportunity to provide this office a response to the petition. On March 19, 2018, we received Mr. Tast's response. On March 21, 2018, the undersigned contacted Mr. Tast to clarify portions of the Department's response. We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your petition and the Department's response in accordance with the Nebraska Public Records Statutes, Neb. Rev. Stat. §§84-712 through 84-712.09 (2014, Cum, Supp. 2016) ("NPRS"). Our findings in this matter are set forth below.          RELEVANT FACTS          Our understanding of the facts in this matter is based upon your petition, the documentation you provided this office, and the response and information we received from Mr. Tast.          On February 8, 2018, you emailed a request for public records to the Department, addressed to Chief of Police Jeff Bliemeister. Specifically, you sought the following records:

[A]ny and all content, including but not limited to dashcam video and related audio, dispatcher logs, police reports, witness statements at the scene, internal memos, related departmental policies, release of any content/information/video/audio and/or any related information released to any news- or media-related agency and/or personnel, any information requests made by any news- or media-related agency and/or personnel and the name and contact information of such news/media agency or personnel related to the incident that occurred on or about September 1995 involving Lawrence Phillips, Kate McEwen, and Scott Frost, Lancaster County, Nebraska CASE NUMBER #95-096843, alleging the following charges against Lawrence Phillips: trespassing; misdemeanor assault and any and all information related to the date and outcome of such charges. Please provide "certified copies" of all official documents.

         Following a series of emails between you and Mr. Tast, in which the date of producing responsive records was scheduled and subsequently modified,2 responsive documents were emailed to you on March 4.3 In his letter accompanying the production, Mr. Tast indicated that

[a]dditional reports and documents are within the custody of the City, but have been withheld because they have been determined by Chief Jeffrey Bliemeister to be records not disclosable under Neb. Rev. Stat. § 84-712.05.

Documents specifically being withheld include case investigation documents including but not limited to transcribed statements from the victim and witnesses, as well as investigation reports, and documents concerning the production of such documents as it has been determined they are records developed or received by a law enforcement agency which constitute part of an

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