Lakewood violated records law in case where police killed ‘antifascist.’ Here’s the cost
The state Court of Appeals ruled last month that the city of Lakewood didn’t perform a proper search of police records related to the high-profile killing of a self-described antifascist near Lacey and couldn’t rectify the error by providing documents to a local public-records activist once he’d already filed a lawsuit.
As a result, the Lakewood City Council voted Monday to offer the plaintiff in the lawsuit, Arthur West, $25,000 for the city’s violation of the state Public Records Act. West told The News Tribune on Wednesday he planned to accept the settlement.
The underlying incident involved the 2020 police killing of Michael Forest Reinoehl, a Portland activist who was suspected of fatally shooting far-right Patriot Prayer supporter Aaron “Jay” Danielson during a clash between protesters in Oregon. Reinoehl claimed in an interview with Vice that he was protecting a friend from getting stabbed.
A Lakewood police officer, two Pierce County sheriff’s deputies and a state Department of Corrections officer working as a part of a U.S. Marshals task force killed Reinoehl in a hail of 37 bullets that damaged surrounding homes in Tanglewilde, near Lacey in Thurston County. A Thurston County Sheriff’s Department investigation determined Reinoehl fired first but his handgun was in his pocket when he died, and detectives found no video of the shooting.
When West asked Lakewood for records from the incident, he misspelled Reinoehl’s name in the body of his request. West spelled the name correctly in the subject line and the city had received similar records requests.
Lakewood told West it had no records to give him because the case remained an active investigation in Thurston County and a search of city emails and texts for the misspelled version of Reinoehl’s name didn’t turn up any results.
West filed a lawsuit in December 2020 alleging the city violated the state Public Records Act. He also sued Thurston County and the state Department of Corrections for improperly withholding records from the incident.
He told The News Tribune he was concerned the investigation was improper because only the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department provided records under his initial request.
Lakewood opened a new records request for West after a city official learned about the lawsuit but prior to the complaint being served to the city.
The city found more than 7,700 pages of records and 11 text messages after using the proper spelling of Reinoehl and adding locations from the incident to the search terms. West received the last of the records in February 2021.
The discovery of the documents confirmed for West that Lakewood had indeed violated the Public Records Act, he said.
Pierce County Superior Court Judge Karena Kirkendoll ruled in favor of Lakewood, but the state Court of Appeals reversed her decision last month.
“Taking into account the correct spelling of Reinoehl’s name at the top of West’s request, the results of White’s internet search on the topic, Lieutenant Lawler’s knowledge of the event, and the City’s responses to related requests, there were multiple obvious leads that the City did not follow up on,” a panel of judges ruled in a slip opinion.
The ruling continued later, “Allowing a government agency to resist disclosure of records until a suit is filed and then disclose them voluntarily to cure any error ‘flouts the purpose’ of the PRA.”
West said his Thurston County lawsuit is under review by the state Court of Appeals, and he expects oral arguments this fall.
“I am surprised that the trial court didn’t catch it originally,” West said of the Lakewood decision. “But that’s how the system works, and the Court of Appeals” ruled correctly.
This story was originally published August 4, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
