From SPLC.org (6/5/12): Private university police departments in North Carolina are not subject to the state's open records law, the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday.
The court’s holding both affirms and expands a lower court ruling issued in July 2011. At that time, Durham County Superior Court Judge Mike O’Foghludha held that Elon University and the state attorney general’s office had provided adequate information to a former student when he requested police records from Elon’s Campus Safety and Police Department.
Nick Ochsner — a former student who reported for the campus TV production Phoenix14News — sought a complete incident report from police following a fellow student’s arrest in March 2010.
After several requests, campus police released part of the incident report that included the suspect’s name, date and location of arrest, charges and bond amount, but the report contained only “skeletal information,” Ashley Perkinson, Ochsner’s attorney, told the Student Press Law Center last year.
Ochsner then filed a request for the narrative portion of the police report with the attorney general’s office, citing a North Carolina statute that names the attorney general the “legal custodian” of campus police records.