Jacksonville sheriff responds to attorney's $314K public records request

Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams said Wednesday that a Jacksonville attorney's $314,000 estimate for a public records request is accurate.

In June, Attorney John Phillips sent a five-page public records request related to the death of 63-year-old Blane Land, who was hit and killed by a Jacksonville Sheriff's Office cruiser in May. Land's family is suing the Sheriff's Office.

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What Williams wanted to clarify regarding Phillips' records request is that the hefty price tag was not just for the officer involved in the crash, but for information on every officer that has worked for JSO for the past 10 years.

Williams said a request for the records of just the officer in the crash would cost about $600.

Williams said there are lessons learned from this, and that the Sheriff's Office should have probably reached out to Phillips to clarify the request after it came back with such a hefty price tag.

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After the the Sheriff's news conference, Phillips released the following statement:

"After sending a request, we received a confirmation email from JSO on June 15, stating, "You will be contacted about the availability and/or provided with copies of the records in question." On July 17, at 4:58 PM, we received the invoice for $314,687.91 which I excerpted on my Facebook page.

"First, neither I nor my office has ever gotten a phone call, a single record or any itemization despite specific falsehoods to the contrary relayed by JSO. It is day 35. All we have gotten is communication through the media not to us.

"Second, JSO has repeatedly stated there are "free records" available on Tim James, which the media has gotten. We have not received one page. 35 days. This is a disturbing trend with JSO. They did the same thing during the case of Officer Borisade. They released materials to media and their own YouTube page (to generate web traffic and social media) before giving a single courtesy to the victims of another abusive officer.

"Third, when I go to Chick-fil-a and order for my whole family and then add in a request for a Whopper, Chick-fil-a does not void my entire order or seek to charge me the cost to build a Burger King next door. They fulfill what they can. JSO only "fulfills what they can" to media. Victims are tired of it. This town is tired of it. My office is tired of it.

"Fourth, after media got debriefed and received a letter address to me, my office received a copy of the itemization. Let me restate that- the media got a letter personally addressed to me before I did. That is not okay, will not be tolerated and this public records law does not pick favorites. The First Amendment is for everybody.

"Fifth, I want my order filled. Letting others repeatedly cut in line in front of victims is as offensive as throwing out $314,000 invoices. I certainly do not want and never asked for a "whopper" of every file on every officer at JSO, but to the extent that has been the interpretation, all I got back was the price to build a Burger King. Frankly, the internal affairs, integrity unit and other departments know that they have reports and summaries and information about officer discipline which is far easier to gather than they claim, but we can address that in a court of law.

"Obviously, the Sheriff has my cell phone as he called it before the press conference. If only he had passed that along instead of a $314,000 bill, we certainly wouldn't be in the same position. I look forward to receiving the records my office requested which have been repeatedly described as "free" which we have waited on for 35 days and look forward to reviewing the itemization and collect what is needed by my clients."

Cox Media Group