Last week, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland stood with community leaders and committed to fixing the problem of “how the police deal with black people.”
Use of excessive force is at the heart of that problem, say protest leaders. But access to public documents that could shed more light on police use of force hasn’t been easy, even for journalists and researchers.
About 60,000 arrests are made each year in Memphis. Only about 2 percent involve some use of force. But every incident is recorded, and those add up to about 1,200 a year.
When we requested the last five years of excessive force complaints against police officers, the department initially proposed a $6,000 fee.
Activists such as Hunter Dempster with the Coalition of Concerned Citizens say these prohibitive costs and red tape are roadblocks to reform.
“From personal experience, trying to get any information around these multi-agency units they just skirt you off to another agency,” he said. “And so you can’t even find out who’s responsible. That kind of lack of transparency is dangerous, and I think everybody in this country should be concerned around this pattern.”
Deborah Fisher with the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government says officials can waive fees as needed. And given the current scrutiny of policing, many documents should be readily available.
“If police departments around the state want to truly put action behind their words, about looking at use of force, then they need to make the records available for free to the public so they can look at what’s been happening,” she said.
A police spokesman said that it would take months to review and redact the documents we requested.
For activist Darin Abston Jr., who says police used excessive force during his arrest at a protest on May 30, Mayor Strickland’s promises of reform, without greater transparency, ring hollow.
“We haven’t seen any action,” he said. “Until he’s proven himself with that, a media show doesn’t do a thing for us.”
The Strickland administration declined to comment on this story.