Several years ago, local journalists noticed that three of the largest police agencies in Virginia — the Fairfax County Police Department, the Alexandria Police Department and the Arlington County Police Department — were summarily denying all open-records requests. Virginia actually has pretty decent open-records laws, but these agencies were simply choosing to ignore them. This came to light after a number of police shootings in which the agencies involved had refused to name the officers responsible. Journalist Michael Pope found that the agencies were even declining to release information about cases they were simultaneously touting in press releases.
This was essentially an open defiance of state law. Yet the Alexandria commonwealth’s attorney not only defended the lack of transparency, he blamed the media for wanting such information in the first place, and derisively referred to “the sacred ‘right of the public to know.’ ”
