This is a series of legal actions over police departments' refusal to release reports of alleged police officer misconduct generated by their Internal Affairs Divisions (IAD).
A lawsuit, Lyssikatos v. King, filed on behalf of Dimitri Lyssikatos, a member of the Rhode Island Accountability Project, argues that the Pawtucket Police Department's refusal to release the records is a violation of the state’s Access to Public Records Act (APRA).
A similar lawsuit, Cox v. Goncalves, a was filed in November 2018.
In a separate legal action, in July 2019, as a result of the Woonsocket Police Department's refusal to release similar records, the ACLU appealed to 1) the RI Supreme Court and 2) the Attorney General requesting that both bodies reverse a 2017 Attorney General decision that allows police to keep secret some of its reports of police misconduct. Update: Woonsocket subsequently released the records in August 2019.
