According to Attorneys for McDade’s mother, the Pasadena NAACP, ACT, the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, and Local ACLU Activist Kris Ockershauser
The long battle to release the Office of Independent Review Group (“OIR”) Report on the Pasadena police shooting of the unarmed African-American youth Kendrec McDade will apparently come to a conclusion soon, as Tuesday’s deadline for the Pasadena Police Officers’ Association (“PPOA”) to file an appeal with the California Supreme Court passed without its appealing.
The Court of Appeals issued an opinion on Sept. 10 ordering the trial court to release portions of the Report in addition to the 80% ordered by the trial court; however, those additional portions and the Report with the 80% redactions are still under seal until the appeal process is finished. The additional portions appear to be critical of the police chief, the city manager and/or the city attorney but appear not to involve further revelations about the officers’ conduct. The PPOA had 40 days after the date of the Sept. 10 opinion to file a petition for review; a petition for review is the method which requests the Supreme Court to consider an appeal. That deadline passed at the close of business today with no PPOA petition being filed.
Civil rights attorney Dale Gronemeier said: “The PPOA’s throwing in the towel today on this case is a wise decision. The PPOA’s appeal backfired, both because the Court of Appeals ordered more of the Report released rather than less as the PPOA sought and because the PPOA’s attorneys themselves bizarrely publicly disclosed portions of the Report that were protected by the Officers’ privacy rights. The additional portions that the Court of Appeals ordered released don’t seem to be of concern to the police officers. Moreover, the odds would have been very long ones for the PPOA to get anywhere with a petition for review; the Supreme Court has strict standards for what cases it takes and therefore rejects even considering 95% of the petitions for review that are filed. The PPOA appears to have made the wise decision to stop throwing more good money after bad.”
Gronemeier is an attorney in the California Public Records Act lawsuit for McDade’s mother, the Pasadena NAACP, ACT, the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, and local ACLU activist Kris Ockershauser. The LA Times intervened along with Gronemeier’s clients to ward off the PPOA’s efforts to suppress the whole Report. Gronemeier argued in the trial court and in the Court of Appeals that the City of Pasadena – which submitted the Report with the 20% redactions approved by the trial court – likely over-redacted to suppress criticism of the City administration. The Court of Appeals opinion vindicated that suspicion by ordering the additional disclosures that the City attempted to redact.
The case now goes back to Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James Chalfant under orders from the Court of Appeals to release at least the portions designated for release in a sealed appendix to its opinion as well as the original 80% that the City would have disclosed; Judge Chalfant could release more than that, but Gronemeier expressed doubt that he would. “He could just quickly have his Clerk make the changes ordered by the Court of Appeals, or he could direct the City Attorney to make the changes and submit it to the Court. But he also could hold a hearing on what to do. We’ll just have to wait to see how he deals with it. I’m hopeful the Report will be released within a month, but certainly before the Christmas holiday. Although the Report still won’t give us the full picture because of the portions redacted to protect police officer privacy, it will give us a much fuller picture of what happened and what shouldn’t have happened.”
