Luongo v. Civilian Complaint Review Board
The Legal Aid Society has asserted they have a right under New York’s Freedom of Information Law (“FOIL”) to a summary of the number of substantiated complaints made to the Civilian Complaint Review Board concerning Officer Daniel Pantaleo, a New York Police Department officer involved in the death of Eric Garner in July 2014. At issue is whether the summary constitutes a “personnel record” under CRL § 50-a, a New York state law that exempts some police personnel files from disclosure under FOIL. The Reporters Committee argued in an amicus brief, which was joined by 20 other news organizations, that the summary does not constitute a “personnel record,” and even if it weren’t, disclosure would not frustrate the primary purpose of the statute, which was to prevent personnel records from being used to harass officers in the context of litigation. Finally, we argued that affording access to the records would promote valuable journalism regarding the NYPD, the largest police force in the United States.