The Palm Beach Post has reported that the Boynton Beach Police Department is being sued for violations of Florida’s Public Records Act. The article states that “Joel Edward Chandler” filed the lawsuit. That is correct.
The lawsuit is one of many that has been filed (with many more to come) in the wake of our recent in-person-audits. So far Robert and I have filed forty-one new public records lawsuits within the past couple of weeks. We plan to file fifty-nine more before the end of the year to make it an even hundred.
The basis of the lawsuit against Boynton Beach Police Department is their unlawful policy of only allowing access to public records on Wednesdays and their demand that all public records requests be made in writing.
In an email to the Palm Beach Post about the lawsuit, Barbara Petersen, President of the Florida First Amendment Foundation wrote:
“The public records law gives us a right of access to the public records of any agency during normal business hours and restricting a citizen’s right to request inspection of a public record to one day a week is, in my opinion, not only impermissible under the law, it’s absurd.
“It’s well settled law in Florida that an agency can’t impose any conditions on our constitutional right of access to public records that operate to restrict that right. A policy like this, one that forces a requester to “come back next week – and only on Wednesday” or to force a requester put a request for public records in writing, is a restriction that is clearly unenforceable and based on what I know of the public records law, it’s highly probable that Mr. Chandler will prevail.”
Stay tuned, there’s lots more to come.
Thank you so much for this lawsuit. The Boynton Beach Police Department gave me such a runaround when I tried to get a copy of a report from an incident where they showed very poor judgement. When my next of kin died, his friend came to the house claiming he was the rightful heir and took his car. When he came back to the house with the car to start going through his things, the police were called. They let him take the car from the house with no paperwork. They said it was a civil matter. I argued that the estate should stay intact until the will was found and read. That was the last we saw the car or him. He left it at the airport and it was repossessed.
Please let me know how I can help.
call me david floering 561-685-3725 I FILED A LAW SUITE AGAINST BOYNTON AND WON
I have been falsey charged three times, falsey arrested twice, had 114 false police reports filed against me, had the Clearwater Police REFUSE to take a report of a crime from me multiple times, REFUSE to investigate or prosecute crimes against me, REFUSE to go to my house when it was beng robbed, Had officers take out 34 false reports of a crime against me, had my child taken from me, had child proteective services lie about me, hide records, refuse to provide me records, DESTROY records AFTER I asked for them, and countless other corrution issues. Now they are trying to prevent me from obtaining the records to prove all of what has gone on, but I already have quite a bit. Now some of the police officers are starting to get into trouble and they are circling the wagons at the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office and the Clearwater Police Department to prevent me from collecting the evidence of what they have done. Google Lt. Richard Crean and the Tampa Bay Times and you will see a few articles that hust touch on what I have beeb through. My Ex is sleeping with several police officers in exchange for police “favors” against me. I could use some help in Pinellas County.
So, how can I help?