After having my application for a CCW denied, I submitted a public records act request on December 15th, 2003, for information on the Hawthorne Police Department's CCW history (here's the PRAR itself). The law allows the recipient 10 days to respond to the request, and since I hadn't heard back from the HPD for almost three weeks I called the city attorney last Friday, January 2, 2004. He told me he had reviewed the PRAR and told the police to respond to it; he was surprised they hadn't, and said he'd get back to me. That brings you up to date.
Today I got another call from the city attorney (who has been quite helpful) who told me that my PRAR had been lost and asked me to fax over another copy, which I did. Shortly thereafter I received a call from an Internal Affairs officer at the HPD who wanted to go over the PRAR with me on the phone, which I did. The gist of the conversation was that the department now claims that they don't issue any CCWs to anyone -- although this directly contradicts the information I was given last month when I first applied. The officer I spoke to on the phone wanted drop the whole issue, claiming that since they don't issue CCWs they don't have any information with which to respond to my PRAR.
But my PRAR asks for information on denied applications, not just permits that have been granted. I also want a copy of the CCW-issuing-policy handbook they're supposed to have and make public by law. The officer I spoke with told me that they don't have such a handbook, and that they don't have any records on denied permit applications. I informed him that they have at least one record of a denied application, because my application was denied last month. I also informed him that the department should have a policy handbook, because it's required by law. He said he'd speak to the city attorney and their own private attorney and get back to me.
