Two Sherwood brothers suing Little Rock and North Little Rock over the cities' police-radio encryption amended the lawsuit Monday to include allegations against the Little Rock Police Department.
The suit previously contained "no facts stated against the City defendants that would provide for a cause of action under Arkansas law," Little Rock City Attorney Tom Carpenter wrote last week in a motion to dismiss the case.
The amended lawsuit, filed by Brandon and Jeremy Mullens, claims that Little Rock police violated the state's Freedom of Information Act last month.
On Aug. 8, an officer at the Little Rock Police Department purportedly refused to accept a Freedom of Information Act request from the brothers at 5:30 p.m. The officer refused to note the brothers' names or contact information and told them to come back during normal hours of operation, according to the suit.
On Aug. 10, the brothers called an emergency dispatch service at midnight and requested police-radio recordings from the past hour, the suit states. They were told to speak with police during normal hours of operation to file their request, according to the suit.
"They're not equipped to handle FOIA requests," Jeremy Mullens said Wednesday. "They operate 24 hours, and they're supposed to take FOIA requests 24/7."
Jeremy Mullens said he and his brother were requesting the encryption key, or password, that makes police-radio communication publicly available. Little Rock police began encrypting radio transmissions July 31. State law restricts access to those transmissions to certain law enforcement and emergency response agencies.
The Mullenses' amended suit claims that another request to review police-radio transmissions was accepted Aug. 11 by Little Rock Communications Manager Laura Martin and police Sgt. James Sloan. Since then, the suit says, Sloan has referred the brothers to the city attorney's office, which has "mentioned technical issues" associated with the request.
Carpenter has previously said that releasing police recordings would require that some information be redacted and a new record be created. The state's Freedom of Information Act does not require that a record be created to satisfy a request.
The Mullenses' lawsuit was filed Aug. 15 and initially named only North Little Rock as a defendant. The brothers sought access to real-time police communication, citing the Freedom of Information Act. North Little Rock police began encrypting their communication in January.
The lawsuit was first amended Aug. 18 to include Little Rock City Manager Bruce Moore, Police Chief Kenton Buckner and Martin as defendants.
It was the first of two lawsuits filed against Little Rock over police-radio encryption. Sebastian Westerhold of Cabot filed suit Aug. 22.
Metro on 09/18/2014