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City of Little Rock releases a copy of a memorandum regarding lack of public notice of a 2022 pursuit where a child was killed

 

Did fear of more AFOIA violation lawsuits get this released?

 

Back in July 2022, we broke the story of an illegal LRPD pursuit into Saline County that resulted in the death of a child.  Click here to view it.

We were able to obtain records that no other media outlet was able to obtain and utilizing our vast database of LRPD records were able to identify the officers involved as well as their personnel files (obtained via a AFOIA lawsuit).

The records we obtained clearly revealed that the command staff at LRPD was aware of the incident. 

We also pointed out that the former police chief and the feckless mayor kept this incident from the public as it was an election year and issues at LRPD with personnel committing crimes was something they wanted to keep from the public.

The mayor feigned ignorance yet refused to provide copies of text messages.

Being an election year, he had to act like he gave a fuck, so he ordered an inquiry to determine why the incident was not made public before we informed the public.

Word came this week that the investigation had been completed and it would not be made public because no one had been suspended or fired in connection with failure to release information about the pursuit and death at the time of the incident. 

We spoke with the city attorney on Thursday morning (March 23rd) and made a verbal Freedom of Information request for:

“any and all records obtained in the course of that inquiry, probe or review as directed by the LR mayor in July 2022, without regard to any findings”.

 As of the time of publishing, the city has not responded to our request.

This afternoon an email arrived that contained a memorandum from the city attorney to the mayor and a memorandum from LRPD Chief Helton to the mayor.

 





A big part of the communication problems LRPD has is from their own sketchy civilian spokesman Mark Nelson, who uses the alias Mark Edwards. 

When Nelson/Edwards is not in court with a paternity or child support actions, he spends time bullying reporters.

Nelson/Edwards is a failed television sportscaster that has a history of disciplinary problems in his short time of employment at LRPD.

Back in January 2021, our own Russ Racop witnessed Nelson/Edwards in a frightening outburst with a KATV reporter.

And everyone has seen the footage where he went ballistic during an 2021 interview the former LRPD chief had with Fox16's Kevin Kelly.

 


And then other media outlets jumped in when Nelson/Edwards tried to gaslight Snarky Media Group after the publication of the pursuit story in July 2022. 

We filed a complaint with LRPD internal affairs about that and have heard nothing.

If the city of Little Rock and LRPD wants to improve communications and trust with the press and public, Nelson/Edwards needs to be terminated as soon as possible.

If the city fails to provide the records we verbally requested, we will sue them again.

The Scott Administration has been sued over AFOIA violation more than any other administration in the entire history of the city of Little Rock. 

###

Here's a story we published about one of the LRPD cops involved in the deadly pursuit that is still employed at LRPD and still fucking up.


https://www.smr.snarkymedia.com/2022/09/lrpd-cop-involved-in-covered-up-fatal.html

And here's a video of that 2022 deadly pursuit.

 

Finally, for your entertainment, here's a video of Topps and Thomas when they were looking for a runaway.



 


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