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Public has no legal right to police logs, say attorneys general

Dispatch reports vary widely by town
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Hampton Falls Police Chief Robbie Dirsa said he publishes detailed police logs because. "People like to see what's going on around them."

Herald file photo

There is no law in New Hampshire, or Maine, that says police departments have to publish logs on a regular basis that itemize police activity.

That's a problem, said attorney William Chapman, because there's "a public interest in knowing what police officers are doing."

"You've got 20 police officers in a town," he said. "What are they doing?"

In spite of the lack of a legal mandate, police departments in both states publish what have come to be known as police logs that are generally released to the media, which in turn publishes them for public review. But a comparison of logs released by police departments from around the region shows some departments withhold information that others release, that some information is never published in a police log, and some departments release daily logs while others hold out for a month.

"Access to logs varies from town to town, and the amount of information in logs varies from town to town," said Chapman, a Right to Know Law specialist who assists media clients. "So I've always looked at it as an abyss, because it's unclear where things stand."

Chapman was instrumental in securing passage of a state law during the last legislative session that now mandates release of specific information, to the public, with regard to all arrest reports.

"In New Hampshire, anytime an arrest is made, it's a public record and the law prescribes what is released," he said. "We've got arrests covered, but we don't have incidents covered."

However, if an arrest isn't listed in a police log, the media, and therefore the public, may never know it happened.

New Hampshire Associate Attorney General Jane Young said the state's Right to Know Law "does not specifically address dispatch logs." Further, Young said, there's "no specific statute that defines whether they are public records or not."

In other words, if a police department keeps dispatch logs — a list of all calls made to the department and the officers' responses — they don't have to be released to the public. That lack of statutory requirement also means there's no legal mandate about what should be included in a police log, or what can be omitted.

Timothy Feeley, spokesman for the Maine attorney general's office, said police departments in Maine also are "not required" to publish police logs. If they do, he said, information legally exempt from public disclosure — for example ongoing criminal investigations — can be redacted.

In Maine, the public is entitled to arrest records, with exceptions, under what is called the Freedom of Access Act.

With New Hampshire and Maine law silent about police dispatch logs, police departments are free to withhold or redact information from their logs, while there's no standard for what information is released to the public.

In Hampton, for example, the street addresses of people arrested by that police department are redacted from police logs. While the law mandates release of arrestees' addresses in arrest reports, there's no legal requirement that the addresses be cited in the police log. Hampton Police Chief Jamie Sullivan did not return a message seeking his comment about those routine redactions.

The Portsmouth Police Department has standard operating procedures pertaining to its dispatch logs, which are released daily and two days after the fact. The operating procedures cite 12 types of information that shall not be released in police logs, including opinions, reports about ongoing cases, information about juveniles, information that could put anyone in danger, identification of confidential informants, medical information and information that could affect a person's right to a fair trial.

But Portsmouth's Dec. 10, 2012, dispatch log did not include an entry noting that an officer went to the home of a city official and confiscated two handguns, per order of a judge related to a domestic violence protective order. Seacoast Media Group was tipped off about the incident and confirmed it through family court records in the Portsmouth Circuit Court.

When asked about that omission, City Attorney Robert Sullivan correctly noted the police department doesn't have to release police logs, but does so as a courtesy. Police Chief Stephen DuBois said the omission was made to protect the alleged victim, who had the protection order vacated shortly after.

In Rye, a driving while intoxicated arrest was recently omitted from that town's police log and the omission was attributed to a new software switch.

Meanwhile, in York, Maine, a weekly press log is provided to the media and includes notations about where and when arrests occurred, but with no information about the alleged crimes, or the people arrested. Instead, a police official meets weekly with a reporter to provide that information verbally.

Similarly, Greenland police logs note only that an arrest was made and if a reporter wants details, the reporter has to call and ask for it.

The North Hampton Police Department posts its dispatch logs online, at irregular intervals and in great detail. Most people involved in most police calls in North Hampton are named in the online logs.

Residents who report an alarm going off, a suspicious person near their home, or are on the receiving end of a verbal warning for a defective headlight are all named. A woman who went to the police station to see if her aunt's retirement check was found, people who reported their dogs missing and someone selling golf balls without a permit were all named in North Hampton's online log.

Someone who found a wallet in North Hampton, the victim of a forged check and a sex offender who appeared for his quarterly registration were also all named in the Web-based police blotter.

It was also noted in a recent North Hampton police log that officers in that town are no longer confirming vehicle identification numbers for residents buying and selling vehicles and boats, "due to budget cuts."

Most detailed of all area police logs is the one published by the Hampton Falls Police Department and e-mailed to subscribers monthly.

"People like to see what's going on around them," said Hampton Falls Police Chief Robbie Dirsa. "We also send alerts about suspicious activity. People like the idea of being able to help. And it helps us to have a lot of eyes out windows that we don't have."

As regular readers of police logs know, the information can sometimes be entertaining. For example, a recent Hampton Falls log noted that on March 19 police responded for "loose cows and a donkey, owner contacted and responded to collect them." On March 30, there was a "report of loose horses in the roadway. A round up was conducted," according to the log.

Hampton Falls police also publish a list of total numbers of various types of police calls including house checks, summonses issued, 911 calls (just one in March), motor vehicle stops and court appearances.

The monthly police blotter also cites a total of revenue the department raised during the reporting month. In March, for example, Hampton Falls police brought in $4,944 in surcharge fees for officers working private details, $50 in firearms license fees and $75 in insurance company checks for reports.

Hampton Falls police also provide a monthly spreadsheet showing the number of police calls, in dozens of different categories and presented side-by-side with prior months for comparison purposes. The log also includes the number of miles logged on the department's cruisers and the ending mileage for each one.

Dirsa said his department switched to a new software program earlier this year that provided less information and was harder to read. He said he got about a dozen citizen complaints so now he's working with two software programs to create a hybrid log that takes "a little bit of extra effort."

But instead of complaints, Dirsa said, he's now getting kudos.

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