Police Department General Orders, policies and procedures
Dear Ridgewood Police Department,
This is a request for public records made under OPRA and the common law right of access. I am not required to fill out an official form. Please acknowledge receipt of this message.
Records requested:
Police Department General Orders, policies and procedures
Yours faithfully,
John Q. Public
Mr. Public,
Attached is our response. Please let me know if there is additional information to be considered.
Chief Jacqueline Luthcke
Ridgewood Police Department
131 N. Maple Avenue
Ridgewood, NJ 07450
(201) 670-5519 – Main Desk
(201) 670-5594 - Office
(201) 652-7905 - Fax
Mr. Public,
Attached is our response. Please let me know if there is additional information to be considered.
Chief Jacqueline Luthcke
Ridgewood Police Department
131 N. Maple Avenue
Ridgewood, NJ 07450
(201) 670-5519 – Main Desk
(201) 670-5594 - Office
(201) 652-7905 - Fax
Hi Chief,
Come on. You and I both know that you know full well what I'm seeking. But to be clear, I'm requesting the Ridgewood Police Department's policy manual whatever you call it, whether (like most LE Agencies) you call your manual "General Orders" or you call it "Rules & Regulations" or like NYPD call it a "Patrol Guide" or perhaps you just call it "Policy Manual", all these synonymous terms refer to the same thing: the document (it's usually just 1 PDF, a handful at most in rare cases) that contains your agency's written directives. It usually (but not always) starts with a mission statement, sometimes a pledge or oath of office and is often followed by a list of the chain of command followed by a compilation of rules, policies, orders and/or directives that govern the agency & it's employees such as code of ethics, use of force policy, conduct policies, rules of engagement with the public, social media/press policy, etc.
The "Bent vs. Stafford PD" standard is of course reasonable on its face. It says that people can't make unreasonably broad "blanket request for all documents". We pay our public servant to serve us not go on fishing expeditions to search for records that may not even exist. However, the Bent Court goes on to say "[A] proper request under OPRA must identify with reasonable clarity those documents that are desired, and a party cannot satisfy this requirement by simply requesting all of an agency's documents."
This decision does not in any way grant you the right to blanket deny every OPRA request that doesn't say the magic words you want to hear. On the contrary, the Court clearly sets the bar at 'reasonably articulated' which I have so clearly done. (Surely it's not your position that citizens in OPRA have a higher burden than LEOs do in Terry?)
Look, you didn't get to where you're at by being dumb & I wasn't born yesterday, nor was this playbook for that matter. I know you know exactly what I requested, you just don't want to comply with the law. (Irony) And if past is prologue, you're going to use some other tactic to prevent disclosure.
You're going to do what you want to do regardless of the law & you know I'm not going to drop this without a fight but I truly hope you surprise me & reconsider.
Honestly, what's the downside of releasing it?
Increasingly more & more PDs (big & small) across the country are proactively publishing their policies online. This is good for your officers, Department & us lowly constituents. Plus it'll make you look good. The appearance of proactive transparency in the name of community policing is so always great PR. It's just good policy. It may even buy a few new toys.
I didn't go for the jugular digging where you don't want me. It's just a generic policy manual practically identical to every other PD in the country. It's not like there's much wiggle room there since its all governed by statute & caselaw.
I'm not going to take no for an answer & who knows what the unintended "collateral damage" will be. Do you really need all that smoke? People really don't like being kept in the dark about their civil liberties. It's un-democratic & I have every intention of making them aware of who is fighting to keep them in the dark.
It will be made public eventually. Why not do the right thing & earn free brownie points in the process?
Best wishes & prayers for the of all.
Truly yours sincerely,
John Q. Public
Mr. Public,
I am not trying to be difficult, so I usually use the letter as it is easiest, but I can just cut to the chase. I never want to guess, but am I safe to assume you are only looking for our currently operating policies and procedures? Without any date, is it too broad as we are an accredited agency, we not only have some historical documents, but also over 7000 pages of information, and that is only dealing with the current files. If you are in fact interested in all current policies, OPRA allows public agencies to impose special service charges whenever the nature, format, manner of collation, or volume of a government record embodied in the form of printed matter to be inspected, examined, or copied pursuant to this section is such that the record cannot be reproduced by ordinary document copying equipment in ordinary business size or when fulfilling a request requires an extraordinary expenditure of time and effort. See N.J.S.A. 47:1A-5.c. Special service charges must be based upon the actual direct cost of providing the copy or copies.
OPRA mandates that the requestor shall have the opportunity to review and object to the charge prior to it being incurred. See N.J.S.A. 47:1A-5.c. As such, a detailed estimate is provided below for your OPRA request, number 1, which sought access to “A full copy of police department policies and procedures, sometimes called standard operating procedures.”
As we typically estimate five minutes per page for producing, reviewing and redacting at a rate of $74.40 per hour, the approximate fee for labor would be approximately $44,000 figuring on 584 hours (not including the 3 hours you are allowed by ordinance). The approximate cost to copy the documents will $0.05 per page, which will result in a fee of $345 for approximately 6,900 pages (not including the 200 pages you are allowed by ordinance). This will bring the approximate total cost to $43,800. If you would like us to proceed with this version of your request, please confirm and submit a deposit of $30,000 in order for us to proceed. Payment may be in cash or check payable to the Village of Ridgewood. The balance would be payable upon completion of the request.
In addition, your request requires additional time beyond the seven (7) business days to fulfill because the request is extensive at approximately 7,000 pages. OPRA allows custodians to seek extensions of time pursuant to N.J.S.A. 47:1A-5.i. Specifically, OPRA states that, “the requestor shall be advised by the custodian when the record can be made available. If the record is not made available by that time, access shall be deemed denied.” I would not anticipate being completed with this request until December 31, 2020.
Kindly respond in writing with your acceptance or rejection of this estimated charge. We will not begin to process this request until we receive your written acceptance.
As I stayed, I really wasn't trying to be difficult in my initial response. I am just hoping, for both of our sakes, that there is a way to narrow down your request.
Chief Jacqueline Luthcke
Ridgewood Police Department
131 N. Maple Avenue
Ridgewood, NJ 07450
(201) 670-5519 – Main Desk
(201) 670-5594 - Office
(201) 652-7905 - Fax
Hi Chief,
It's me again. I have to say there's a part of me that's gained so much respect for you. This is classic "malicious compliance" as the kids on Reddit call it. You heard toys and you really ran with it huh? But let's be real. There was nothing in my request to suggest I'm requesting anything other than your current policies. We can continue to play these games if you insist and I'm pretty darn great at it too but please let's not. Let's just get it over with respectably and be done.
Yours sincerely,
John Q. Public
Mr. Public,
As my prior email stated, I was guessing that all you wanted was our current policies and that is what my time estimate and quote for special services was based off. With just our current policies, we are estimating we have over 7000 pages of documentation, so I apologize if I didn't make that clear on our last email. The information below still stands.
As I have repeatedly stated, I am not trying to be difficult, but we do have many policies. I am still hopeful we can work together to narrow down this request. If not, I will wait until I receive the deposit before I begin working on it. And depending on when the deposit is received, the date for the extension may need to change.
Chief Jacqueline Luthcke
Ridgewood Police Department
131 N. Maple Avenue
Ridgewood, NJ 07450
(201) 670-5519 – Main Desk
(201) 670-5594 - Office
(201) 652-7905 - Fax
Mr. Public,
As my prior email stated, I was guessing that all you wanted was our current policies and that is what my time estimate and quote for special services was based off. With just our current policies, we are estimating we have over 7000 pages of documentation, so I apologize if I didn't make that clear on our last email. The information below still stands.
As I have repeatedly stated, I am not trying to be difficult, but we do have many policies. I am still hopeful we can work together to narrow down this request. If not, I will wait until I receive the deposit before I begin working on it. And depending on when the deposit is received, the date for the extension may need to change.
Chief Jacqueline Luthcke
Ridgewood Police Department
131 N. Maple Avenue
Ridgewood, NJ 07450
(201) 670-5519 – Main Desk
(201) 670-5594 - Office
(201) 652-7905 - Fax
Hi Chief,
I have made this precise request to another accredited Police Department and what I received from them is precisely what I seek from you. Here's a link to the entire OPRA request including the responsive records.
https://opramachine.com/request/police_d...
Yours sincerely,
John Q. Public
Mr. Public,
Every agency has different policies and procedures. I understand that was the response you got from Paramus, but that is only 200 pages of information, which means they have less policies than we do. We have over 300 policies, which is why we estimate it at 7000 pages. If these are the specific polices you are looking for (and I would request that you make a list for us), then I would be able to work with that. It will still require an extension of time, but at least it is more feasible.
Chief Jacqueline Luthcke
Ridgewood Police Department
131 N. Maple Avenue
Ridgewood, NJ 07450
(201) 670-5519 – Main Desk
(201) 670-5594 - Office
(201) 652-7905 - Fax
Mr. Public,
I will also add that Paramus is a NJ State Accredited Department. We are a CALEA (Commission for the Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies) accredited department, and have been since 1996. There are over 400 standards for the CALEA accreditation, which is significantly more than the State Accreditation program. That would explain the differences in the number of policies between our agencies.
Chief Jacqueline Luthcke
Ridgewood Police Department
131 N. Maple Avenue
Ridgewood, NJ 07450
(201) 670-5519 – Main Desk
(201) 670-5594 - Office
(201) 652-7905 - Fax
Hi Chief
Actually Paramus sent 3 PDFs in 3 separate emails totalling ~540 pages but since they send scanned image based PDFs at a whopping 10mb+/ea. they had to split em.
Look I have the CALEA manual & standards list in front of me and rather than just request them one by one I'd rather just come to an understanding. All I'm after is the public facing policies like rules on identifying when asked, if asked to call a supervisor to the scene, use of force, conduct on traffic stops, Terry stops, consensual encounters, and dealing with average citizen filming, news journalists as well as "auditors". This is so there's no confusion for everyone's safety. The rest I'll leave up to your discretion.
Yours sincerely,
John Q. Public
Mr. Public,
So I have another request that has been specifying which policies they want, and they are giving me the list in groups so as to not overwhelm us with the workload. If you would like, I will forward those to you as I send them to the other requester. If you feel anything is missing that you are looking for, you can then request those items. As you know, I can't play guesswork on interpreting what you want, but in the spirit of transparency and working together, I'm hoping we can start there.
Please let me know.
Chief Jacqueline Luthcke
Ridgewood Police Department
131 N. Maple Avenue
Ridgewood, NJ 07450
(201) 670-5519 – Main Desk
(201) 670-5594 - Office
(201) 652-7905 - Fax
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John Q. Public,
Please don't give Police Chief Jacqueline Luthcke a hard time regarding your OPRA request because she is more than willing to fulfill your request. The Police Chief has been more than professional with you within the e-mail correspondence that has been exchanged so far. Each police department is different from the next one...!!