The Town of Tonawanda police union is asking a judge to block the public release of some officer disciplinary records.
The Town of Tonawanda Police Club in a legal petition argues the town must keep secret several categories of records, primarily unsubstantiated complaints, pending allegations and matters that produced confidential settlements.
Revealing those records, according to the union's attorney, Paul D. Weiss, violates the officers' privacy expectations, their contractual rights and provisions of the state constitution.
Weiss said it is too easy for people to file false or meritless complaints, "based upon any number of nefarious or malicious motivations," that can destroy officers' reputations and endanger their safety.
"Without the safeguards of proof and finality provided by the agreed-upon disciplinary processes already in place, the lives of police officers and of their families will be irreparably harmed," Weiss wrote in the complaint filed Friday in State Supreme Court.
People are also reading…
The complaint names the town, its Police Department, Tonawanda Supervisor Joseph Emminger and Police Chief James Stauffiger, who have not yet had time to respond to the petition.
Emminger declined substantial comment until he has had a chance to review the filing.
"That said, I believe the police discipline records should be made available but not anything that would be considered to be part of their training," he said, referring to the letters of counsel that are kept in officers' training, and not discipline files. The Police Club also is seeking to keep these private.
The filing by the town's police union comes a month after Buffalo's police and firefighter unions launched their own legal effort to block the city's release of certain disciplinary records. Some of the language in the Tonawanda filing mirrors the Buffalo filing.
State Supreme Court Justice Frank A. Sedita III has issued a temporary restraining order barring the city from releasing the types of records at the heart of the Tonawanda case: those that are unproven, still under review or that ended with a confidential settlement.
The Buffalo News has joined 26 other news organizations in opposing the filing by the Buffalo police and firefighters union.
The legal fight comes after the State Legislature earlier this year approved a law, which took effect in June, that no longer permitted the withholding of police officer and firefighter disciplinary records requested through the Freedom of Information Law.
That change was aimed at increasing transparency and was prompted by nationwide protests and calls for police reform following the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis.
News organizations across the state have begun filing public records requests for police disciplinary records, such as complaints of use of excessive force.
In response, police unions have argued that only information about complaints that were upheld should be disclosed publicly.
To release records about other allegations contradicts decades of legal precedent and violates the officers' contractual and constitutional rights that remain in effect no matter what the new law says, their attorneys contend.
To bolster his argument, the attorney for the Tonawanda police union, which represents about 100 officers, includes in his filing a list of 34 state-certified professionals, from acupuncturists to veterinarians, whose records of unsubstantiated complaints remain confidential.
The Police Club asked the court to temporarily bar the town from releasing any of the challenged records until Sedita, who is also assigned to preside over its case, rules on the merits of its petition. The requested restraining order would apply to confidential settlements reached before June 12, the day the law took effect.
