|
||
6 January 2010
Richmond Police Department Taking Anarchists To Court Over Manuals
Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2011 19:05:28 -0800 (PST) For Immediate Release: Richmond Police Department Taking Anarchists To Court Over Manuals From Jan. 4th Today we received an interesting package from the City of Richmond, hand delivered to our door. The documents within informed us about a court case in the works ("The Chief of Police Bryan Norwood and The City of Richmond v. Mo Karn"), and include an: "Emergency Motion for Protective Order and to Compel the Return of Tactical Information and to Prevent the Disclosure of Said Information on behalf of Plaintiffs Chief of Police Bryan Norwood and The City of Richmond" You can see the documents here (they are almost identical): Emergency Motion for Protective Order by Richmond Police Department V. Mo Karn Complaint by Chief of Police Bryan Norwood And The City of Richmond V.Mo Karn What it boils down to is they're trying to sue Mo Karn, saying some of the police documents we received via the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) are documents they shouldn't have sent us, specifically ones including "tactical plans." They are going to attempt to get an order "(A) compelling the return of certain exempt information, (B) preventing the disclosure of this information to the general public, (C) enjoining the defendant from publicizing this information, and (D) granting such other relief as the Court deems appropriate." The first reason stated for this in the Emergency Motion is the most obvious: "1. Defendant Mo Karn is a known and admitted anarchist. See generally
It goes on to detail most of the mundanely routine email conversation between
Mo and the Angela Harrison (Associate General Counsel, although titled in
the case documents as a "Program Manager") of the RPD, to whom our FOIA request
was directed. When she mentioned that certain documents included tactical
plans, Mo stated very clearly, "I understand that tactical plans may not
be subject to FOIA. However if any of the manuals and orders I have requested
include tactical plans I would expect that tactical plans sections to be
blacked out, but the non-tactical information surrounding them in the manual
to still be included."
Unfortunately that means not shit to us. If the RPD feels they
shouldnât have sent out these documents, maybe they shouldn't
have done so. The idea that they can sue anybody for having information that
they gave us is utterly ridiculous.
Sadly, we already uploaded ALL of these ostensibly public documents (linked above) prior to learning about their illicit nature. We no longer have the ability to remove them from the internet, or the public domain. We encourage you to look through these documents and more on our Richmond Police Department Documents page. For our part we're seeking legal counsel on the issue. If it ever goes to court we promise you'll hear about it. For updates and more information about the Wingnut Anarchist Collective please visit www.wingnutrva.org or call 804 303 5449
|