NEWS > 05 January 2007

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Northeast Mississippi Daily Jo
05 January 2007

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Researcher requests Tupelo PD

TUPELO - An ethicist looking into city policies has requested E-911 radio logs for the police department for calendar years 2005-2006.

The request was a topic at Thursday's meeting of the E-911 Board of Commissioners, but the officials aren't sure that they can hand over the records. They cited privacy reasons and also weren't sure that have the workers to compile documents requested by Cindy Brown, executive director of Ethics Now.

Until the commissioners can get in touch with Gary Carnathan, a Tupelo attorney representing Lee County, and work out a plan for the workload, they'll table the issue.

Ethics Now has been hired by the city to look into allegations of racial bias by the administration.

In a letter dated Dec. 29, Brown wrote E-911 Director Paul Harkins that the request is "part of the assessment of the police department."

More specifically, Brown wants the date and time of each call from the police department, the identity of the officer or officers requesting the information, the registration or license information provided by the officers or dispatch, and the resulting information provided by 911 dispatchers.

Additionally, Brown wants a breakdown of the information provided to the police department.

"For your benefit and that of your committee's, I am interested in this information from several perspectives but am addressing, in part, complaints by citizens that the police department is targeting members of minority communities," Brown wrote in the letter to Harkins.

When contacted Thursday afternoon, she declined to comment about the request.

Lee County Administrator Ronnie Bell, who serves on the Board of Commissioners, raised the concern about the volume of information requested by Brown.

"My only concern, which shouldn't be before what you're doing as a city, is the volume of information and how much responsibility we can take and time," Bell said.

"This is a good bit of information and time."

Tupelo Police Chief Harold Chaffin, who wrote a letter supporting the request, said he was asked to write the letter. "We are cooperating," he said.

The task will be a big one, according to Harkins.

"I am going to have to dedicate someone to this project," he told the commissioners. "I'm sure we'll incur overtime. It will require reassignment to do it."

Harkins isn't sure what process he'll have to use to gather the information. Some of the information will be computer generated but the information inside the log is what will take time, he said.

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Article sourced from

Northeast Mississippi Daily Jo05 January 2007

Researcher requests Tupelo PD

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Northeast Mississippi Daily Jo
05 January 2007