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Police prepare to shred documents
By MATT KAPKO
Half Moon Bay Review
October 27, 2004
The Half Moon Bay Police Department has not yet begun the laborious process of destroying tens of thousands of records officials say serve no purpose other than to clog files.
The department got the go-ahead from the City Council, which passed a resolution authorizing the work on Oct. 5.
Police Chief Ike Ortiz said the destruction of the documents will free up some much-needed space. He noted California Government Code 34090 allows for the routine destruction of such documents.
The "tedious" task should take approximately a year to complete, said Cheryl Martin, records supervisor of the police department.
"I'd say generally, there are over 2,000 cases a year," she said, adding that some of the records slated for destruction date back to 1990.
Martin said she will have to go through each report to determine which cases need to be kept on file and which documents can go straight to the shredder.
Law enforcement agencies deal with record keeping in different ways.
The San Mateo County Sheriff's Office houses all of its old paperwork at a centralized county records department in Redwood City.
Officials there said that records are only destroyed after a judge's order. An individual who wishes to destroy a personal record, according to a clerk at the department, typically prompts the process.
The Sheriff still keeps records dating back to the '60s and '70s, the clerk
said. The more recent records are in digital format.
The Pacifica Police Department also keeps its records for a longer period of time.
The Pacifica City Council decides what can and can't be destroyed, a clerk there said.
The Pacifica police administration prefers records not be destroyed, the clerk said.
Martin is starting to go through the records but at press time had not yet destroyed anything. She said she will work around her other required duties.
The records that the HMBPD has permission to shred include: internal affairs investigations, reports of sudden death and the bodies of people who died by natural causes, common citations, employee personnel files, abandoned vehicle reports, animal bite reports, attempted suicides, runaways, arson and narcotics registrants, minor drug possession records and numerous other documents.
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