Long Beach Police Officers Ass'n v. City of Long Beach
| Decision Date | 29 May 2014 |
| Docket Number | No. S200872.,S200872. |
| Citation | 172 Cal.Rptr.3d 56,325 P.3d 460,59 Cal.4th 59 |
| Parties | LONG BEACH POLICE OFFICERS ASSOCIATION, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. CITY OF LONG BEACH et al., Defendants and Appellants; Los Angeles Times Communications LLC, Real Party in Interest and Respondent. |
| Court | California Supreme Court |
Law Offices of James E. Trott, James E. Trott and Larry J. Roberts for Plaintiff and Appellant.
The Law Offices of Charles Goldwasser, Charles A. Goldwasser, David A. Goldwasser, Los Angeles, and Theodore H. Dokko for Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs, Santa Ana Police Officers Association and Santa Barbara Police Officers Association as Amici Curiae on behalf of Plaintiff and Appellant.
Crabbe, Brown & James, Larry H. James and Christina L. Corl for The National Fraternal Order of Police as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Plaintiff and Appellant.
Bobbitt, Pinckard & Fields, Richard L. Pinckard, San Diego, and Charles B. Walker for Police Officers Research Association of California as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Plaintiff and Appellant.
Stone Busailah, Michael P. Stone, Muna Busailah, Pasadena, and Robert Rabe for Los Angeles Police Protective League and Riverside Sheriffs' Association, Legal Defense Trust as Amici Curiae on behalf of Plaintiff and Appellant.
Robert E. Shannon, City Attorney, and Christina L. Checel, Deputy City Attorney, for Defendants and Appellants.
Liebert Cassidy Whitmore, Richard M. Kreisler and David A. Urban, Los Angeles, for Los Angeles County Police Chiefs' Association as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Defendants and Appellants.
Karlene W. Goller, Los Angeles; Davis Wright Tremaine, Kelli L. Sager, Rochelle L. Wilcox, Los Angeles, and Jeff Glasser, San Francisco, for Real Party in Interest and Respondent.
Peter Bibring ; Michael T. Risher, San Francisco; and David Blair–Loy, San Francisco, for ACLU Foundation of Southern California, ACLU Foundation of Northern California and ACLU Foundation of San Diego & Imperial Counties as Amici Curiae on behalf of Real Party in Interest and Respondent.
Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton and Guylyn R. Cummins, San Diego, for California Newspaper Publishers Association, California Broadcasters Association, Newspaper Association of America, National Press Photographers Association, Associated Press, CBS Broadcasting, Inc., Freedom Communications, Inc., Gannett Co., Inc., Hearst Corporation, The New York Times Company, Press Democrat, The Press–Enterprise, San Diego Union–Tribune, The McClatchy Company, First Amendment Coalition, First Amendment Project, Californians Aware, Citizen Media Law Project, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and Newspaper Guild as Amici Curiae on behalf of Real Party in Interest and Respondent.
Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz, James E. Grossberg, Lee Levine, Jeanette Melendez Bead ; Terry Francke; Mark Powers, Santa Maria; James Ewert, Sacramento; Mark H. Jackson, San Bernardino, Jason P. Conti, Gail C. Gove ; David M. Giles; Peter Scheer, San Francisco; Eve B. Burton, Jonathan R. Donnellan ; Karole Morgan–Prager, Stephen J. Burns, Sacramento; Denise Leary, Ashley Messenger ; Mickey H. Osterreicher ; Amanda M. Leith ; Covington & Burling, Kurt Wimmer ; Bruce D. Brown, Gregg P. Leslie and Mark R. Caramanica for Californians Aware, California Broadcasters Association, California Newspaper Publishers Association, Dow Jones & Company, Inc., The E.W. Scripps Company, First Amendment Coalition, Hearst Corporation, The McClatchy Company, National Press Photographers Association, National Public Radio, Inc. NBCUniversal Media, LLC, Newspaper Association of America and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press as Amici Curiae on behalf of Real Party in Interest and Respondent.
A newspaper asked a city to release the names of police officers involved in certain shootings while on duty. The police union then sought injunctive relief against the city in superior court, attempting to prevent release of the names. The newspaper intervened (seeking disclosure of the names), and the city then aligned itself with the union (opposing disclosure). The trial court denied the union's request for a permanent injunction; that denial was upheld on appeal. We granted the separate petitions for review filed by the city and the union. We now affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeal.
Shortly before 5:00 p.m., on December 12, 2010, two City of Long Beach police officers responded to a resident's telephone call about an intoxicated man brandishing a "six-shooter" on neighboring property. At the sight of the two officers, the man (35–year–old Douglas Zerby) pointed at them an object resembling a gun. The officers immediately fired multiple rounds at Zerby, killing him. It turned out that the object Zerby was holding was a garden hose spray nozzle with a pistol grip.
Three days later, reporter Richard Winton of the Los Angeles Times (the Times), asked the Long Beach City Attorney's Office for "[t]he names of Long Beach police officers involved in the December 12[, 2010,] office[r-]involved shooting in the 5300 block of East Ocean Boulevard" (the Zerby shooting), as well as "[t]he names of Long Beach police officers involved in officer [-]involved shootings from Jan[uary] 1[,] 2005 to Dec[ember] 11, 2010" (the nearly six-year period leading up to the Zerby shooting). The request was made under the California Public Records Act ( Gov.Code, § 6250 et seq. ).
On December 30, 2010, plaintiff Long Beach Police Officers Association (the Union), the bargaining agent for all Long Beach police officers, sought injunctive relief in the superior court. Named as defendants were the City of Long Beach, the Long Beach Police Department, and its chief of police (collectively, the City). In its complaint, the Union asserted that the City had informed it that, unless prohibited by a court, the City would disclose the information sought by the Times. Accompanying the Union's request for injunctive relief was a declaration by Lieutenant Steve James, the Union's president, expressing concern that release of the officers' names could result in "threats against the well being of officers or their families," as occurred in one recent police shooting case in which release of an officer's name led to "death threats" against the officer. James also mentioned an anonymous post on an Internet Web site, wishing that the children of an officer involved in a particular police shooting would experience Christmas without their father. James asserted that the Internet offers broad access to personal information, using only a person's name as an Internet search term.
The superior court issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting the City from disclosing to the Times the names of the officers involved in the Zerby shooting. The court then continued the case to a later date to determine whether to issue a preliminary or permanent injunction, and it allowed the Times to intervene in the action.
Defendant City supported plaintiff Union's request for injunctive relief. The City asserted that the names of the two officers involved in the December 2010 fatal shooting of Zerby were exempt from disclosure under the California Public Records Act. With respect to the names of the City's police officers involved in earlier shootings, the City asserted that those names, too, were likely subject to the same statutory exemptions but that its practice was to evaluate each disclosure request on a
The City submitted a declaration by Long Beach Police Lieutenant Lloyd Cox, who was in charge of "the criminal and administrative investigations related to all Officer Involved Shootings." The declaration stated that the police department conducts an administrative investigation of every officer-involved shooting, and, if warranted, an internal criminal investigation follows. Documents resulting from these investigations are treated by the police department as personnel records that are statutorily exempt from disclosure.
Cox's declaration also stated that revealing the name of an officer involved in a shooting could expose the officer and the officer's family to harassment, because the officer's home address and other personal information could easily be found using the Internet. The declaration further stated that when, for example, an officer is involved in a shooting of a gang member, it is not uncommon for the gang to retaliate against the officer. Cox mentioned eight "Officer Safety Bulletins ... about potential retaliation/threats against officers," two of which were related to shootings, and he also described graffiti in the City of Long Beach that read "Strike Kill a Cop."
In arguing against disclosure of the names of the officers involved in the Zerby shooting, the Union and the City cited Government Code section 6255, subdivision (a), which authorizes denial of a public records request when "the public interest served by not disclosing the record clearly outweighs the public interest served by disclosure of the record." The Union and the City argued that the public interest in preventing harassment, threats, or violence against officers and their families outweighed any benefit the public would gain from disclosure.
The Times moved to strike Lieutenant James's declaration (filed by the Union), but the Times did not object to the declaration of Lieutenant Cox (filed by the City).1 The trial court struck those portions of the James declaration that mentioned (1) the general safety concerns associated with releasing the names of officers involved in shootings, (2) the death threats made against specific officers involved in past shootings, and (3) the ease with which a name can be used to gather personal information over the Internet. The trial court then denied the Union's request for a preliminary or permanent injunction, and it discharged the temporary restraining order. The court ruled that none of the disclosure exemptions in the California Public Records...
To continue reading
Request your trial