Marijuana Offenses: 2013-2016 (Gastonia Police Department)

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to North Carolina Public Records Law (G.S. §§ 132-1 through 132-10), I hereby request the following documents:

A copy of all data related to citations/arrests for marijuana possession made by your agency. We are specifically seeking any statistics related to the total number of arrests and/or citations for offenses related to marijuana possession as well as the location of the incident and the ethnicity, age, sex, and other demographic information of the persons arrested and/or cited, if available. The time frame for which we are seeking records is from January 2013 through December 2016.

If it is your position that any portion of the requested records is exempt from disclosure, we request that you provide it with an index of those documents as required under Vaughn v. Rosen, 484 F.2d 820 (D.C. Cir. 1973), cert. denied, 415 U.S. 977 (1972).

If you determine that any portion or portions of this request cannot be fulfilled as promptly as any other portion of this request, we ask that you first fulfill whatever portion of this request you can fulfill within 10 business days and then fulfill the remainder of the request as promptly as possible.

We are happy to work with your office to make this request as simple as possible and eliminate unnecessary work. Please contact us before you incur labor costs or the use of information technology resources beyond those that your agency has already established for reproduction of the information requested. We can probably find an efficient solution that serves the public interest while minimizing your effort.

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 would request your response within ten (10) business days.

Sincerely,

Working Narratives

To clarify, your agency lists a marijuana offender as being either hispanic or nonhispanic, without recording the offender's race?

Hi Donna, Thanks for your work. Is there anyway you could include this data in a spreadsheet, or provide us with the original PDF? These documents seem to have been printed out and then scanned into a computer, making them very difficult to extract data from. Again, much thanks!

Hi Donna, Thanks for the quick response and follow up phone call. Our public information request was submitted in October of last year and asked for "statistics related to the total number of arrests and/or citations for offenses related to marijuana possession as well as the location of the incident and the ethnicity [race], age, sex, and other demographic information of the persons arrested and/or cited." The time frame for which we sought records was from January 2013 through December 2016. Though we received a response in November, it was sent as a PDF that had been printed and then scanned into a computer. We've been unable to convert that into a spreadsheet. It would be great if Gastonia could send the data in a spreadsheet or provide us with the original PDF. Thanks in advance for your help!

Hi Donna, Hoping I entered your email address correctly and wanted to confirm receipt.

Hi Donna, This really helps. Much thanks!