| VOLUSIA EXPOSED.COM |
|
|
Volusia County Claims Alleged Statutory Exemption To VolusiaExposed's Public Record Request For Jail Video  Yes, We Have No Records We Have No Records Today ! Sung To The Tune Of "Yes, We Have No Bananas" |
August 7, 2014 |
"Police throughout the United States have been caught fabricating, planting, and manipulating evidence to obtain convictions where cases would otherwise be very weak. Some authorities regard police perjury as so rampant that it can be considered a "subcultural norm rather than an individual aberration" of police officers."
|
vs. The Washington Post |
Billy Jones |
|
Is Far More Interesting Early this month (July 2014), VolusiaExposed became aware that the Volusia County jail had terminated Officer Chris Richardson, for falsifying records regarding the completion of safety and security rounds. Large PDF file - Allow Time To Download Volusia County jail has had several in custody deaths that we suspected were connected to officers failing to conduct safety and security rounds, and then falsely documenting that the rounds were completed. We have posted several articles on these suspicious deaths - but the September 2009 death of 26 year old Tracy Veira stands out as a prime example. VolusiaExposed suspected that our readers would be interested in reviewing the documents and records connected to the Richardson termination, therefore, we made a public record request, via email, for the Richardson records. 
F.S. 281.301 Security systems; records and meetings exempt from public access or disclosure.—Information relating to the security systems for any property owned by or leased to the state or any of its political subdivisions, and information relating to the security systems for any privately owned or leased property which is in the possession of any agency as defined in s. 119.011(2), including all records, information, photographs, audio and visual presentations, schematic diagrams, surveys, recommendations, or consultations or portions thereof relating directly to or revealing such systems or information, and all meetings relating directly to or that would reveal such systems or information are confidential and exempt from ss. 119.07(1) and 286.011 and other laws and rules requiring public access or disclosure. History.—s. 1, ch. 87-355; s. 1, ch. 89-47; s. 101, ch. 90-360; s. 130, ch. 96-406. |
UPDATED - August 7, 2014 County Jail Agrees To Provide Future Jail Surveillance Videos. Makes Personal And Legal Request That Jail Schematics Be Removed From VolusiaExposed. http://bngconstruction.net/Plans/13.05.08_volusia_co_branch_dwgs_div3.pdf
Further, this is the second occurrence of the county allowing purportedly sensitive records to be posted to the Internet. Last year, VolusiaExposed discovered the County's Emergency Operation Plans on the Internet. We opted not to post those records to the our website because the records contained personal contact information on numerous public safety employees. We merely notified Volusia County administration of the security breach. Volusia County's desire, by making both a personal and legal appeal for the records removal, has NOW convinced us that they appreciate the seriousness of maintaining the security of these records. VolusiaExposed holds the opinion that we exercised a copyright "Fair Usage" exemption, by posting the jail's building schematics. We argue that VolusiaExposed.Com is a critical journalistic news source. As per our mission statement, our preferred target of criticism is the Volusia County Department of Public Protection, in which the jail is a subsection thereof. This particular article was very critical of the jail's refusal to provide us with our requested jail surveillance video. The jail claimed that they could not honor our public record request for the surveillance video without divulging some protected information of how the surveillance system operated. Obviously, our article wished to criticize the jail's failed logic, of denying our request for a surveillance video, while at the same time, allowing their building contractor to have the jail's building blue prints on the world wide web. Ultimately - who is responsible for jail security? We suggest it's the jail's administration, the very same administration that is denying our public record request for the surveillance video. Wasn't it their job to ensure that these blue prints were not in circulation - if these records were really as important to public safety as indicated in their below email (see below email from county public information officer)? Thus the rationale for our criticism, and desire to make a journalistic report to our readers. We are sure many of our readers will remember the below video from San Francisco television station KTVU. The television station was fooled into reporting some fake, but humorous names of the crew of Asiana Flight 214. The video went viral over the internet. However, to really appreciate the reporting error of KTVU, one must watch the entire video clip. We believe the same is true regarding the jail schematics - they must be viewed in thie entirety to gain a full appreciation of their importance to the jail's security, and the irony of the jail's failure to protect these records from disclosure to the internet, while denying our public record request for one jail surveillance video. We suspect that KTVU TV would love to envoke a "copyright" claim to the above video - in order to reduce their embarassment, by restricting the availability of the video on the internet. Sorry KTVU TV, but the video has a fair use exemption - your copyright claim doesn't outweigh the people's right to be critical of your failure to report the news accurately. We suspect that the company's and the jail's failure to maintain the security of these schematics opens them up to simpler criticisms, especially given the fact that the schematics were readily available for download by anyone with a internet device and internet access. HOWEVER, now the county and their contractor have requested that we remove the building schematics (see below scroll box). Based on this documentation (a personal email, as well as a legal notification) - they have provided VolusiaExposed with documentation that clearly supports that the records were available for download, and such gives notice to the importance of these records. Therefore, these documents can serve as replacements to the actual schematic documents. In short, whether we have the actual schematics posted, or the legal request for removal - either one will support that our criticisms and news reports were accurate. With those thoughts in mind, with the fact that we do not wish to bog VolusiaExposed down in defending our rights to present the documents - we have chosen to replace the original building schematics with the county's legal request for their removal. This will free our staff up to concentrate on other pending articles. Should this issue need to be re-visited, we will assess the most appropriate course of action in defense of the public's right to know, and to criticize their government. A sure sign of a corrupt government is one that can't take criticism - VX     |
|
Of Releasing Videos VolusiaExposed.Com did not request the schematics for the jail's security system - rather we requested the video that was inclusive in the Richardson internal affairs report. In the past, the jail has been very responsive to our request for copies of their surveillance videos - as is noted in this September 2013 VolusiaExposed.Com article in which we give the jail kudos for not violating the privacy of inmates regarding the jail's video surveillance system. We suspect that the 281.301 exemption does not apply to the requested video. We further suspect that the jail / county is very much aware of the weakness of their position. So why not release the video? We suspect that either the video does not support the claims within the Richardson IA report, or is in some other way damaging to the jail. Or more likely, the video no longer exist - someone forgot to save it for the Richardson case file. |
VolusiaExposed.Com's Jail Surveillance Video Article Click Below Image  
|
Isn't it interesting that Ofc. Richardson was terminated for falsifying official records? Wouldn't it be ironic if Ofc. Richardson was not the only one falsifying records?
Our Suspicions:
Record Exemption Was Not For Security Reasons
Given the jail's extensive history of providing VolusiaExposed, and other media outlets, with their surveillance videos, and the fact that they apparently don't even mind their jail's security blue prints and building schematics to be openly available for download on the world wide web (see above web links - VolusiaExposed downloaded this information off of the world wide web) - we find it somewhat dubious, that they would now declare the Richardson video to be an exempted security concern. What do you think?
Just recently, VolusiaExposed.Com toured the opening of the Volusia County Sheriff Department's new district 3 substation. Sheriff Ben Johnson joined us in our tour - we openly snapped numerous photos and videos of the new substation, as did other media outlets, to include it's video surveillance system - without a peep of concern coming from members of the VCSO. Then again, Sheriff Johnson does NOT run the county jail, and his office has always been VERY responsive to our public record requests.
For us here at VolusiaExposed - we think that they (jail) have our freaking bananas (our requested records), and we want them !
Retired Extremely Dangerous
John Malkovich as "Marvin" in RED 2
Record Exemption Was Not For Security Reasons
Given the jail's extensive history of providing VolusiaExposed, and other media outlets, with their surveillance videos, and the fact that they apparently don't even mind their jail's security blue prints and building schematics to be openly available for download on the world wide web (see above web links - VolusiaExposed downloaded this information off of the world wide web) - we find it somewhat dubious, that they would now declare the Richardson video to be an exempted security concern. What do you think?
Just recently, VolusiaExposed.Com toured the opening of the Volusia County Sheriff Department's new district 3 substation. Sheriff Ben Johnson joined us in our tour - we openly snapped numerous photos and videos of the new substation, as did other media outlets, to include it's video surveillance system - without a peep of concern coming from members of the VCSO. Then again, Sheriff Johnson does NOT run the county jail, and his office has always been VERY responsive to our public record requests.
For us here at VolusiaExposed - we think that they (jail) have our freaking bananas (our requested records), and we want them !
John Malkovich as "Marvin" in RED 2
-----------------------------------------------
Drop us a line to let us know what you think.
EMAIL US