When government officials withhold records, the public pays the price

Enterprise reporter Jessica Contrera had requested the records of Officer Brett Parson, who was nationally known for his leadership of the D.C. police Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit, now known as the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Liaison Unit. Contrera made the request after Parson was charged in February 2022 in Broward County, Fla., with two counts of unlawful sexual activity with a minor. Parson pleaded not guilty, and in March, Florida prosecutors dropped the charges due to “lack of the victim’s cooperation.”

Parson had been widely praised by the LGBTQ+ community for his work with the unit, and in 2019 he was lauded as a “living legend” by the Capital Pride Alliance, which advocates for the LGBTQ+ community and coordinates the annual Capital Pride festival. Contrera wanted to know more about Parson’s record, including whether this was the first time he had been accused of misconduct. So I helped her file three public records requests in June 2022 for any police disciplinary records for Parson, who had retired from the D.C. police force in 2020 and was a member of the D.C. police reserve force when he was arrested. After his arrest, he was terminated from the reserve force.

D.C. police denied the initial requests. We appealed, but the Mayor’s Office of Legal Counsel upheld the denials because, the office said, The Post had “not articulated a cognizable public interest” in any disciplinary records for Parson. Contrera published her investigation without the records, but The Post continued fighting for their release.

Parson did not respond to phone messages or texts requesting a comment on the charges or his disciplinary record. His attorney in Broward County, Fla., Michael Dutko, also did not respond to phone messages or emails. In March 2023, after the charges were dropped, Dutko told The Post:

“From the outset, it was our position that things weren’t as they appeared. … Brett Parson was not some predator in search of a child or young person. He did nothing but go onto an adult site looking for companionship.”

Nationwide, local and state police records are some of the most difficult for members of the public to obtain. Although each state has its own public records law — most of which were modeled after the federal Freedom of Information Act — state legislatures have carved out strong exemptions that block public access to many law enforcement records. Departments often refuse to release records based on exemptions for “investigatory records” or “personnel files.”

Even when states have changed laws to make specific types of police records available, as in California, New York, Maryland and Virginia, officials have resisted.

Last year, D.C.’s elected leaders took their own steps to ensure public access to police disciplinary records. The D.C. Council passed the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act last December, and it became law in May after President Biden vetoed congressional efforts to block it. The law includes a provision that “disciplinary records shall not be categorically denied or redacted on the basis that it constitutes an unwarranted invasion of a personal privacy for officers within the Metropolitan Police Department.”

Patrick Yoes, national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, opposed the provision. He wrote a letter to Sens. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warning that the provision requiring the release of disciplinary records would “include personally identifiable information — placing these officers in jeopardy.” Yoes did not respond to a request for comment.

D.C. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), who drafted the provision, told me in an interview that revealing police “misconduct fundamentally gets at the core of policing powers,” and public access to officers’ disciplinary records will contribute to “rebuilding and sustaining and protecting trust between community and police.”

Despite the new law, Steven Rubenstein, an attorney for the D.C. Office of the Attorney General, argued in court in August that Parson’s disciplinary records should remain secret. While acknowledging that the law would someday require disciplinary records to be made public, he argued that a requirement that the provision be funded allowed police to ignore it until then. The District’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer estimated that the entire Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act will cost $1.23 million in fiscal year 2023. Rubenstein also contended that the D.C. FOIA law required the records to be withheld because Parson’s right to privacy outweighed the public interest in his disciplinary files.

Judge Maurice Ross did not buy these arguments. “You have a pre-George Floyd view of FOIA,” he told Rubenstein at an August hearing, referring to the lawyer’s justification for why the records should not be released. The judge added that it was “somewhat tone-deaf” to make an argument that had “been repudiated by recent legislative action and a whole mood change within the city and the country.” Ross later acknowledged in his Sept. 14 ruling that the police reform act would not take effect until it was funded. But he said it was a “good law” that lent weight to his conclusion that the public interest in Parson’s disciplinary records outweighed the private interest. He ordered the documents released within 15 days, by Sept. 29.

In more than 600 pages, the records revealed that Parson had been investigated for 12 allegations of misconduct from 2003 to 2017. The allegations included the use of excessive force, inappropriate language — including while in court — missed administrative deadlines, the loss of police ammunition and three “preventable” car accidents. All but one of the allegations were sustained.

(The Post is making the full disciplinary file available to read here. Personal identification information was redacted before it was shared with The Post. Some of the documents have profane language, including a racial slur.)

In one case from 2014, Parson told a teenage girl who was under arrest that if she resisted, she would “go down those stairs head first.” Parson admitted he “should have used more articulate language” but said he had used “verbal judo” in an attempt to avoid physical force. The allegations that Parson had used “harsh” and “inappropriate” language were sustained. He received a deferred, one-day suspension.

In another case from 2008, records show that Parson was investigated after he detained a man he believed was involved in a drug transaction outside a D.C. nightclub and the man’s “body was thrown through a plate-glass window” as Parson attempted to handcuff him. Parson said he “did not realize the glass was so close” and denied throwing the man. The department found that Parson’s actions were justified, but the city later settled a lawsuit with the man for $17,500.

Parson’s most severe discipline was a 10-day suspension handed down for being “negligent in his duties” and “insubordinate” in 2009 after he failed to conduct a proper investigation into another officer’s actions. Parson said that a superior officer disciplined him because the investigation did not reach his superior’s desired conclusion. Initially, he was suspended 20 days, but Cathy L. Lanier, the chief at the time, reduced it by half.

“While it is true you have high achievements on the department … you also have a documented history of inefficient supervision and profane/inappropriate conduct toward a prosecutor. … You were repeatedly counseled regarding the tone and tenor of your interaction with superior officials,” Lanier wrote to Parson explaining her decision.

D.C. police referred The Post to the D.C. Office of Attorney General. The office of the Attorney General declined to comment.

Ryan Bos, the executive director of Capital Pride Alliance, told The Post, “In light of the information that the report contains, it would have been better to have known about Brett Parson’s full disciplinary record before we made the decision to include him in that section of the 2019 Pride Guide, which included existing leaders of the LGBTQ+ community.”

Thanks to the D.C. Freedom of Information Act — and Judge Ross’s willingness to enforce it — the public now has fuller knowledge of Parson’s history as an officer, as well as how the department handled his misconduct.

In his ruling, Ross ordered the city to pay The Post’s attorneys’ fees and court costs for the litigation. He based this on a provision in D.C. FOIA law called “fee shifting” that can place the financial burden of litigating open records disputes on the party that loses the case. Similar provisions exist in many states and under federal law.

Attorneys for The Post and the city negotiated a $70,347.48 settlement. This sum is hardly a number to scoff at, but it also does not cover all the costs that The Post incurred paying their lawyers (and reporters and editors) to fight for and win these records.

It’s great to be mailed checks along with records, but the primary reason that The Post seeks fees in this and other cases is to make government officials understand that there are consequences for improperly withholding important records from the public.

In the end, the city’s refusal to comply with the law not only delayed the public’s access to these records — it also passed along the costs to taxpayers.

Jessica Contrera and Monika Mathur contributed to this report.

Do you have a question, comment or FOIA idea? Leave a comment or email me at RevealingRecords@washpost.com.