Ponca City confirms right to access arrest records in settlement with Oklahoma Watch

A public records lawsuit brought by Oklahoma Watch and one of its former reporters has forced a city in Oklahoma to concede that it wrongfully withheld law enforcement records in a settlement that could discourage the practice in other municipalities across the state.

The nonprofit news outlet and reporter Whitney Bryen, represented by attorneys at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and local attorney Doug Dodd, sued Ponca City in January 2024 after its police department refused to release arrest information that Bryen requested under the Oklahoma Open Records Act. 

In a settlement finalized last month, the city acknowledged that the information at issue — a basic summary of the arrest in the narrative section of the arrest report — was public under the law and “should have been produced to the Plaintiffs without the need for litigation.” The city agreed to pay $12,250 in attorney’s fees and costs. 

“This is a big win for transparency and accountability in Oklahoma,” said Beth Soja, a senior staff attorney at the Reporters Committee who worked on the case. “Thanks to this settlement, law enforcement agencies in the state are going to think twice before deciding to withhold arrest information from the public.”

Bryen, who is now a reporter at InvestigateWest, originally filed her public records request in July 2023. As part of an investigation into jail deaths in Oklahoma, she specifically asked the Ponca City Police Department for the arrest report of Patrick Hansen. Hansen had been arrested a year earlier on allegations of child abuse and domestic violence. He later died inside the Kay County Detention Center, just weeks after another inmate died at the facility. 

The police department turned over the seven-page arrest report but removed the narrative section. That section generally includes key details to help contextualize the arrest circumstances, such as what led to the arrest and how officers responded, according to Oklahoma Watch. 

City officials claimed that the narrative section of the report was exempt from the state’s open records law. Oklahoma Watch reported that the Ponca City attorney told Bryen several cities in Oklahoma are claiming the same exemption. 

The concern was that “this was a practice that was going to spread,” Soja said. 

With the help of Reporters Committee attorneys, Bryen and Oklahoma Watch sued Ponca City, alleging that it violated the law by withholding the information. The lawsuit noted that the state’s open records law lists an array of arrest information that is public, including a “brief summary of what occurred.”

“The records belong to the public; they’re not private documents to be secreted away by an agency with police powers that wants to operate in the dark,” Ted Streuli, executive director of Oklahoma Watch, said at the time.

Disclosure of the narrative would allow Oklahoma Watch and Bryen “to evaluate whether those entrusted with the law are honestly, faithfully, and competently performing their duties as public servants,” the lawsuit argued.

Soja said that a few months after Ponca City hired a new attorney in September 2024, the parties reached a settlement. According to the settlement, the city released the narrative section of the arrest report and agreed that “if this lawsuit were completed, Oklahoma Watch would prevail in its claims for the Documents and would be entitled to reasonable attorney’s fees.” 

Soja said she’s grateful for the efforts of Bryen and Oklahoma Watch to challenge the denial because it will likely lead to greater transparency across the state.  

“This case shows the tremendous importance of local news in holding public officials accountable,” added Leslie Briggs, the Reporters Committee’s new Local Legal Initiative attorney for Oklahoma. “It means other members of the press and public won’t have to spend their limited time and resources to sue for the same information — information that belongs to the public.”