Posted On:
December 29, 2008
Beaufort County Sheriff is in violation of FOIA, says AG's opinion
When reporters complained that the Beaufort County Sheriff was in violation of FOIA by refusing to provide access to incident reports on weekends and by heavily redacting the reports, the Sheriff said he would ask the Attorney General for an opinion on the matter.
The Attorney General obliged, and has disappointed the Sheriff by announcing that the Sheriff is wrong, after all.
A new policy of the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office violates the state's open records laws by not providing reasonable public access to police reports in a timely fashion, according to a state Attorney General's Office opinion released Tuesday.
The Sheriff apparently still intends to do things his way, choosing not to abide by the decision that he asked for himself:
While the S.C. Press Association lauded the opinion -- calling it a "line drawn in the sand" --Tanner said he has not yet decided whether he will comply. He conceded his office might allow reporters to review incident reports on weekends and holidays, but said no new reports would be released on those days."If you go into the office on the weekend, what you're going to see is what was already there on Friday," Tanner said.
