CCDBR Ally Lucy Parsons Labs Wins Major Battle for Police Transparency

Posted on July 26, 2025

According to a new report in The Guardian, a judge ruled in favor of plaintiffs suing to force the Atlanta Police Foundation to disclose records in its possession. The resultant disclosure numbered some 300 pages, and pertains to the so-called “Cop City” training facility to be built for use by the Atlanta Police Department.

Though aligned with the interests of the Atlanta Police Department, the Atlanta Police Foundation (APF) is a separate nonprofit entity. However, this nonprofit was believed to be the custodian of records pertinent to law enforcement policy in the city of Atlanta. Because nonprofit entities have historically been exempt from compliance with open records laws, the Atlanta Community Press Collective (ACPC), filed the now-closed lawsuit, contending that the APF was being used to effectively withhold documents of interest to the public from efforts at transparency.

The judge in the case ruled that the APF was obligated to serve requests under the State of Georgia’s Open Records Act. This victory for government oversight sets the key precedent that government-linked foundations are fair game for government transparency advocates.

However, the article is careful to point out that the judge’s opinion did not rule on the nature of documents held by government- or police-linked foundations as a class. Rather, the ruling only established that the documents requested by the plaintiffs met the criteria to be considered eligible for request under the Open Records Act. Even so, it charts a path for civic actors to obtain records from extra-governmental organizations where before they were regarded as impenetrable. The APCP has already pressed its advantage and issued requests for additional records from the APF.

Of interest to Chicago civil libertarians, it bears noting that Lucy Parsons Labs (LPL) was a co-plaintiff with ACPC. LPL has administered workshops organized by CCDBR specifically on filing freedom of information requests, and many of their members are nationally recognized experts on the subject, particularly the Freedom of Information Act. In addition to being a local Chicago civil liberties organization, LPL is also a fellow member of the Electronic Frontier Alliance.

We applaud our esteemed peers at LPL for this landmark in open records law interpretation and adjudication.

You can read the full article from The Guardian here.