COLUMBUS, Ind. – Former Columbus Mayor Kristen Brown recently won her court case against the city of Columbus for violating the Indiana Access to Public Records Act. Brown had requested information about a crash involving law enforcement, possible injuries, and damage to property, but claimed that the police chief, Jonathan Rohde, did not provide all the information that she requested.
After battling in court, Judge Richard Poynter of Jackson County, ruled in favor of Brown. The court document states that, “the Public Incident Report contained insufficient information”, and that “Nothing in the Public Incident Report contains a description of the factual circumstances surrounding the incident.”
Now, the city of Columbus has issued a response, courtesy of its attorney Alan Whitted. He claims in his response that during the litigation the Columbus Police Department provided Brown with a complete copy of the records of the case and attempted to settle the case, however, Brown refused.
Here is the full response from attorney Whitted:
“The city would respond to the Judge Poynter’s ruling that the documents released to Ms. Brown, pursuant to her request for investigatory of police records, was done according to the procedures established during the time that Ms. Brown was Mayor of Columbus. Learning that the release of investigatory records procedures was out of compliance, the Columbus Police Department corrected the policy to provide the appropriate information to the public relating to police activities.
During the litigation, the Columbus Police Department provided Ms. Brown with a complete copy of the records of the case and attempted to settle the lawsuit. Ms. Brown refused to settle the case without a finding that the city of Columbus acted in bad faith resulting in additional litigation expenses. Judge Poynter found that the city did not act in bad faith in this case. Ms. Brown further prolonged the litigation by inappropriately personally suing Columbus Chief of Police Jon Rohde and refused to dismiss Chief Rohde from the suit resulting in the court dismissing Chief Rohde as a party to the litigation.
In February of this year, Ms. Brown filed another complaint to the Public Access Counsellor against the Columbus Police Department regarding the release of documents. This time we followed the procedures established under the current administration, and the public access Counselor found no basis for Ms. Brown’s allegation that there was a violation of the public records access rules.”
