RFM gives us an update into his legal pursuit to un-redact the highly Redacted Provo Police report and to retrieve the Provo Police Audio evidence of their interview with Joseph Bishop. Hot on the trail RFM will not take No for an answer!
Copies of requests and responses thus far
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Plausible deniability by way of incognito and/or UNSIGNED documents already is a standard practice of the Church in the case of contra-doctrinal press releases and smear campaigns for political convenience, for example. Therefore I am not surprised by the rather irregular format of the rejection letter (nor by the leaks and employment of “buffers”).
Remember the BYU police are employees of BYU and must meet the same requirements of other BYU employees. In addition to being a certified peace officer it is my understanding that they must have an ecclesiastical endorsement and those that are Mormon must remain loyal to the church. They do have the investigative resources to investigate sexual assault at the MTC. The church has their own police department there!!!!
The BYU police department refused to release information to the Salt Lake Tribune in 2016. The BYU police department argued that they are not subject to GRAMA since they are a private police force. The Salt Lake Tribune went to court to fight that. In January 2017 Third district court Judge Lara Scott ruled that the BYU police department is subject to GRAMA. The BYU police is subject to oversight by the Department of Public Safety. You can see in the article below that in the summer of 2016 they were investigated for possible violations related to the reporting of sexual assault.
https://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/education/college/byu/judge-rules-byu-police-is-a-government-entity-in-regard/article_4d9b9ab9-49d7-50ad-9656-8b6b80ecaae4.html
There are other articles in the Tribune about this fight with the BYU police as well.
The case filed in July 2016 by the Salt Lake Tribune against the state records committee to force them to apply GRAMA to the BYU police department is still active in the Third District Court. The State Records Committee has a brief summary of the status of all their cases in all their meeting handouts for their regular meetings. The most recent shows case 160904365 current disposition is “reply memoranda filed by parties with the court” All last year they were having discovery. https://www.utah.gov/pmn/files/377525.pdf
The decision in January 2017 was to deny the motion to dismiss made by BYU and the State Records Committee but wasn’t a final ruling on the case.
Radio Free Mormon…they may not give you the records you are asking for as they will be waiting for the court to rule on whether they are subject to GRAMA. They currently are arguing they are not subject to it.
Doug…all this stuff you just posted blows my mind.
The church acts above the law. They give lip service to honoring and obeying the law, but when it serves their purpose, they choose to say they are subject to God’s law which they say is higher.
Corporate politics at its best….no doubt. So much for being “honest, true, chaste, benevolent…”
Makes me laugh out loud just saying that!
RFM….I LOVE this podcast, and I am VERY grateful you have the knowhow to push some of this.
One of the biggest complaints against people like Mitt Romney and others is the control the LDS church exerts in the political arena. Its gone on since the beginning, and its collusion, IMHO, of criminal magnitudes.
I think that BYU Police is in the back pocket of the church. I think they are hiding. I think that this is corrupt–its all about throwing McKenna under the bus (and all the other victims) to protect the “Good name of the Church”.
It infuriates me! A church that teaches “Do what is right let the consequences follow”…and then turns around hypotrically and and justifies immoral and CRIMINAL behavior, does not have a GOOD NAME!
RFM…just read your post out in NOM. Are you taking up any clients in this forthcoming suit?
I’m just curious. YOu are anonymous and all. I suppose you might not be able to respond to this question…