Police Data - Arrests, Citations, and Traffic Stops (Emeryville Police Department)

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the California Public Records Act, I hereby request the following records:

Please provide the following:

1. All arrests data reported to the California Department of Justice via the Monthly Arrests and Citation Register program covering arrests made in 2017 and 2018, including (but not limited to) the age, race/ethnicity, gender, offense category (felony, misdemeanor, status offense), charge, unique subject id (also known as person_id), and disposition of arrestees.
2. All traffic stop data covering stops made in 2017 and 2018, including (but not limited to) the age, race/ethnicity, gender, offense category (felony, misdemeanor, status offense), charge, unique subject id (also known as person_id), and disposition of those stopped.

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 10 calendar days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Sd3183

Dr. Lorrayne Leong,

I appreciate your response. Unfortunately, the records you provided are not the records I requested. Please provide the following:

We request raw data – in a machine-readable database or spreadsheet format such as SQL, CSV, XML, JSON, Excel, or Access files — on Traffic Stops and Arrests. The time period of the data should cover the earliest date available in the City of Emeryville or the Emeryville PD databases through the date on which this request is fulfilled.

The data should include all disclosable fields, including but not limited to fields containing the following types of information:
• Officer First, Middle and Last Name
• Officer Shield Number / Employee ID / Unique System ID
• Officer Rank
• Officer Start Date/ Appointment Date
• Rank/ Squad Assignment Date (See Note)
• Status (i.e. Active, Retired, etc.)
• Officer Gender
• Officer Race/ Ethnicity
• Incident Location
• Incident Offense
• NIBRS Code
• Incident Date
• Incident Time
• Charge
• Charge Description
• Person ID (Subject ID)
• Subject Sex
• Subject Race
• Subject Age
• Incident ID
• Search Conducted
• Disposition
• Vehicle Make
• Vehicle Model
In addition, we are also requesting all identifiers, primary keys, and/or metadata that distinguish between unique records and individuals, and that link the database tables together, including but not limited to Incident IDs, Person IDs, and [any other relevant fields you’re aware of].

We are also requesting any data dictionaries, code tables, or other types of manuals that define, in plain English, the meaning of the column headers in the data, and any codes, acronyms, abbreviations or other shorthand terms used for entries in the data.

We are asking for an export of raw data, to the extent maintained in the City’s databases. We do not expect the City to manually input or alter any information into the data for the purposes of fulfilling this request.

Redactions:

If a record contains both exempt and non-exempt information, the non-exempt information should still be provided:

Because we are requesting data, each distinct type of information is separated into its own field (i.e. column), making it easy to redact exempt information en masse.

Entitlement to Records as Data:

We request these records in a machine-readable database or spreadsheet format — such as SQL, CSV, XML, JSON, Excel, or Access files — and not printed out, or converted to PDF files, or otherwise processed in a manner that would decrease the quality, quantity, or accessibility of the original information the records represent.

We realize the information may be contained in multiple tables. We are not asking The City/ Emeryville Police Department to join tables together for us, or to conduct any type of analysis on the data. We are merely asking for the department to export the raw data, as it exists in the department's database, which should minimize the amount of programming necessary to fulfill our request.

We can do the joining on our own, so long as each table contains the unique identifiers
and primary keys necessary to join the tables together, and so long as we are provided the
necessary documentation to ensure that we are accurately joining and analyzing the data.

We are comfortable working with very large databases in many standard data formats.
Upon request, we would be happy to provide a USB thumb drive or external hard drive to
facilitate the release of these records.

Other Provisions:

If there are any fees for searching or copying these records, please inform me if the cost will exceed $50. However, since this information is being sought for public research purposes, we request that any fees be waived because disclosure of the responsive records is squarely in the public interest and will make a significant contribution to the public's understanding of critical issues related to policing.

The California Public Information Act requires that you "promptly produce" the requested records unless, within 10 days, you have sought an Attorney General's Opinion. If you expect a significant delay in responding to this request, please contact me with information about when I might expect copies or the ability to inspect the requested records

If you deny any portion of this request, please cite the specific statute that you feel justifies
each exemption,

We request that communication regarding this request be conducted via email, and that the
request be filled via email if possible, as we are entitled to under the law,

Thank you for considering our request.