Tuesday, the narrative portions of initial incident reports from the APD were withheld from reporters and the public in a move some legal experts say is a violation of Georgia’s Open Records Laws.
On Wednesday, Phyllis Banks, the department’s spokesperson sent an e-mail to reporters explaining the change.
In its entirety, the e-mail reads:
“Recently, the Albany Police Department started requiring a higher standard of professionalism in report writing, which results in a more detailed incident report as opposed to the one or two sentence report, which was acceptable in the past. The goal is that each incident report have sufficient information to include the ‘who, where, what, when, and how’ of each event.
“The department’s public relations-media manager serves as a liaison between reporters and investigators in addressing follow-up questions from the media.”
Asked why the policy change was implemented, Banks issued a statement from Younger.
“It’s a step towards the department continuing its level of professionalism,” he said.
“In comparing the information contained in the ‘new’ reports to that of the ones that were released in their entirety until Tuesday, it’s hard to see where there’s a difference other than cutting drastically the amount of information people get to see regarding crimes in Albany,” Albany Herald Editor Jim Hendricks said. “Rather than improve professionalism, the intent appears to be an effort to keep the public more in the dark about criminal activity that’s going on by adding another layer of insulation between the public and information they have the right to access.
“Nothing in this new method benefits the public.”
Tuesday, City Attorney Nathan Davis said that it was his opinion that the department was only required by law to issue the first page of the report which is labeled “Incident Report.”
David Hudson, the general legal counsel for the Georgia Press Association and an Open Records Law expert said Tuesday after seeing a report issued previously with the narrative intact that all of the pages of the initial report must be available to the public.
