( ) — Emily Moyer, a 37-year-old photographer, was hoping public records could help save her fiance. With his criminal history and an arrest for drug and firearm possession charges, she said, he was facing life in prison. His public defender was overwhelmed.
So on April 12 of last year, Moyer asked for the disciplinary records for a slew of Spokane police officers involved with her fiance’s case. Speed was crucial: The trial was in August. Moyer was using one of the most important tools the public has for holding government agencies accountable.
Ever since voters passed the Washington Public Records Act initiative in 1972, everybody — no matter who they are — can obtain copies of most documents produced by state and local public agencies. Think of it as a legal crowbar that anyone can use to crack open the government’s closed doors, revealing the secrets inside. Indeed, when Moyer got the first records back, they showed multiple officers with a history of discipline problems.
Officer Darrell Quarles, to name one, had been written up for repeatedly failing to activate his body camera, making an illegal traffic stop and associating with a drug-dealing prostitute. The records could have “raised credibility questions as far as Officer Quarles testifying,” Moyer said. But by then it was Sept.
29. The trial had been over for nearly a month. Quarles had testified, and her fiance had already been sentenced to 16 years in prison.
She’s still waiting on the rest of the .
