Use of Wichita police file of sensitive cases is under review, officials say

The Wichita city attorney is reviewing whether a Police Department file holding years of sensitive cases has been used inappropriately, City Manager Robert Layton said Tuesday.

Layton said that one question he has asked City Attorney Jennifer Magana to answer is whether use of the police file has been broadened from what it was originally intended to hold. If the review uncovers inappropriate use of the file, he said, “we need to rectify that.”

Magana said she is at the early stage of her review and isn’t sure yet who has access to the file, but that it is limited. The city attorney’s office and apparently District Attorney’s Office also has access to the file, she said. It appears that certain supervisors decide which cases go into the file, which is in an electronic database.

Police Capt. Troy Livingston, who oversees the police records section, said comment on the file would have to come from city officials.

The police file is referred to by insiders as “the confidential file.” It was created to protect sensitive criminal investigations including murders and sex crimes so that people in the Police Department not involved in the investigation would not have access to case information and photographs, Layton said. The BTK serial murder investigation would be an example of the kind of case that might be in the file, he said.

The idea was to keep people from snooping, out of curiosity, and to protect the privacy of victims, Magana said.

Layton said he wanted to stress that although access to the file is limited, it is “not a secret file so to speak.” He said he felt that “confidential file” was a sensationalized way to refer to the file.

Open-records requests

Recent open-records requests from media and residents for cases in the file involving city employees prompted him to have Magana review the file and how it is used, Layton said.

So far, it appears that about 30 cases a year have been put in the file. The cases date back to at least 2004, but Magana said it’s “very possible” that some might go back to the 1980s. “I haven’t got back that far,” she said.

The cases include homicides; sex crimes, including those with child victims; suicides and cases against city employees. The cases involving city employees include allegations of domestic violence.

“Some (cases) are not as serious as others,” she said. “They’re not all serious.”

Magana said she can’t say yet whether there is evidence of any cover-up of cases in the file. She also hasn’t seen any evidence that information from the files has been destroyed.

Layton has asked her to look at the file case by case, she said, “to understand what is there.”

The case information in the file includes investigative notes, narratives, photographs – “all the details,” Magana said.

A limited portion of the file – the front page of what is known as the incident report on each case – is automatically open to disclosure under Kansas open records laws, Magana said. Although the entire case can be requested, some of it might not be open under the law.

This story was originally published September 15, 2015 at 6:36 PM with the headline "Use of Wichita police file of sensitive cases is under review, officials say."