A Tulsa County judge is letting a police union review 66 pages of officer disciplinary records before it continues to fight their public release in court.
District Court Judge Caroline Wall agreed to let the Tulsa Fraternal Order of Police review the records at a hearing on Wednesday after the union asked the court for an emergency protective order to prevent their release. The police union sued after The Frontier requested the documents from the City of Tulsa.
Sean McKenna, attorney for the Tulsa Fraternal Order of Police, told the judge that he hadn’t seen the second batch of records and would need to review them to determine if they should have been purged or expunged.
The city had already given The Frontier over 100 pages of records before the police union took legal action.
The Tulsa Fraternal Order of Police argued in a court filing that the release of records would cause “certain and irreparable harm” to its members. The union said it had a deal with the city to “purge” and “expunge” records from the officer’s disciplinary file as part of its collective bargaining agreement. Those records are still required to be kept in the Internal Affairs division, according to the agreement.
The City of Tulsa argued in a legal brief filed Tuesday that it has the authority to release the records, which are public under the Oklahoma Open Records Act. The city also argued the records it has already released should not have been purged or expunged.
An attorney with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press representing The Frontier filed a motion to intervene in the case, but the judge did not allow arguments to be heard on the matter.
Final disciplinary actions for public employees that involve suspension, demotion, loss of pay or termination are public record under state law.
The judge told McKenna she expects him to determine if he believes the unreleased records are exempt from the Open Records Act and if he objects to their release.
If McKenna doesn’t object, the judge said the records will “immediately” be released.
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