A Kansas City man was held at gunpoint and his wife and two children detained while law enforcement officers ransacked their home. KANSANS have a right to know about such things.
When Robert and Adlynn Harte sought an explanation for the SWAT-style raid on their Leawood home, records remained sealed.
Over the course of a year, the Hartes fought to get probable cause records explaining why a Johnson County tactical team targeted their house in 2012. When the Johnson County sheriff’s department finally turned over the records, one year later, the truth came out. What was suspected as marijuana were most probably tea leaves. Seems Mrs. Harte has a penchant for brewing tea.
Had the probable cause affidavits been open to the public, the Hartes could have been saved much public humiliation and $25,000 in legal fees to get access to the affidavit the police filed to get a search warrant for the Harte home.
Johnson County commissioners, its sheriff and several police officers also could have been saved the expensive lawsuit they now face by the Hartes for damages they incurred during the raid.
Kansas is an outlier when it comes to sheltering such records from public view. Under current law, police aren’t required to share probable cause records unless ordered by a court to do so.
House Bill 2555 proposes to make such court records open to at least those targeted.
Shawnee Republican Rep. John Rubin is the author of House Bill 2555, which passed overwhelmingly by a vote of 113-to-10 and now faces a vote by the Kansas Senate.
Rubin contends the burden should be on law enforcement, not the individual, to justify the need for keeping police records private.
Compared to other states, the proposed law would still be weak when it comes to the public’s right to know. Most states assume such records are open to the public once an investigation is complete. In cases where information is deemed sensitive, such as betraying the identification of an undercover law enforcement agent, for example, such information could be redacted, or “whited out.”
— Susan Lynn
KC house raid by police shows need for open records
