City of Colorado Springs v. American Civil Liberties Union

The ACLU received a serious complaint—corroborated by police reports—that a Colorado Springs police officer repeatedly bashed an unresisting African American suspect in the head with a heavy metal flashlight. To investigate further, ACLU Legal Department staff made a routine request for additional documents from the Colorado Springs Police Department (CSPD), including the records of an internal investigation into the police officer’s conduct. The CSPD replied that, as a matter of policy, it never released internal affairs documents. The ACLU then forwarded a copy of Judge Lemon’s December 2005 ruling in the ACLU's case of Nash v. Whitman, which held that a similar policy of the Denver Police Department violated the Colorado open records laws.

The City of Colorado Springs then filed suit against the ACLU, asking the court for a declaratory judgment that it was not obligated to disclose the requested documents. The ACLU filed a counterclaim, asking the court to order disclosure pursuant to the Colorado Criminal Justice Records Act.

After a hearing, the district court ruled in favor of the ACLU, holding that Colorado Springs was obligated to disclose the records of the internal investigation into the officer’s on-the-job conduct.

The records the ACLU obtained in this litigation supported the ACLU's lawsuit in Faulker v. Hardy, filed July 2, 2006, on behalf of the man illegally beaten with Officer Hardy's flashlight.

“Police told to hand over report to ACLU,” The Gazette, February 7, 2007