The names of the UC Davis police officers who pepper sprayed students’ faces during protests last spring were ordered released by an Alameda County Superior Court judge Tuesday.
The lawsuit was filed by the Los Angeles Times and Sacramento Bee against the UC Regents last month under the California Public Records Act to compel release of the names of all the officers in the pepper-spraying incident. Only two names had not been redacted from the report; the rest had been withheld under a settlement agreement in a separate case.
According to reporting by the Los Angeles Times the Federated University Police Officers’ Assn. intervened in the newspapers’ lawsuit to block the release of the names. They now have has until July 27 to file a writ seeking review by an appellate court. The names of the officers will not be published before that date.
The police union attorney “Michael Morguess, who participated in Tuesday’s court hearing by telephone, indicated that the organization would do so. He could not be reached for further comment.”
Thomas Burke, an attorney who represented the newspapers, said after the hearing.
“The court today provided valuable transparency that was missing from the earlier litigation,” “The Reynoso report will now be publicly released without any police censorship.”
The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, which had intervened in the earlier case to push for the report’s full release, participated in the current case by filing a brief in support of the newspapers’ position.
“It’s a great result,” ACLU attorney Linda Lye said after Tuesday’s hearing. “Transparency is paramount in cases involving police officer misconduct.”
via he Los Angeles Times
The Reynoso Task Force Report via UCLA Daily Bruin
[gview file=”https://firstamendmentcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/reynoso-report.pdf”]