By: E&P Staff The New Orleans Police Department settled a lawsuit by The Times-Picayune by agreeing to speed up the public release of crime incident reports, the newspaper said.
Under the agreement, incident reports will be available to the public after they are approved by a shift supervisor.
Previously, the department kept the reports from the public until they were delivered to a records room in headquarters, a process the paper said took as long as two weeks.
In its lawsuit filed April 18, the Times-Picayune contended state law classified the reports as public records as soon as they are written.
Under the agreement, the police department will be allowed to assert that some "sensitive' details of the report should not be made public. The department will have to release the rest of the report, however.
The police department and newspaper are still negotiating what legal fees are owed to the paper. If they cannot reach agreement, the issue will be decided by a judge, the newspaper said.
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