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City Releases Findings Over WPD's Use Of Limited Access Files

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The City Law Department on Monday presented findings and recommendations from a review of the Wichita Police Department's policy and practice involving limited access files.

The review focuses on a specific database, set aside for cases more sensitive in nature than the main software system used by the WPD.

Those cases include homicides, fatal car accidents and cases in which police officers or city employees are either suspects or victims.

City Manager Robert Layton asked for the review this fall to determine if there had been any unlawful or inappropriate practices.

City Attorney Jennifer Magana conducted the review and didn't find any practices that violate any ordinance or laws.

Layton said the city will develop a policy to make it clear on what records can be put into the limited access files and what can’t.

“More importantly, make it clear who is responsible for that designation and that we don’t use the internal limited access file as a mechanism to not share information with the public or with the media,” he said.

Layton told reporters he plans to have new police chief Gordan Ramsay review the policy and implement it. Ramsay begins his new position Jan. 28.

Read the city's statement on the review here:

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Follow Carla Eckels on Twitter, @Eckels

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Carla Eckels is Director of Organizational Culture at KMUW. She produces and hosts the R&B and gospel show Soulsations and brings stories of race and culture to The Range with the monthly segment In the Mix. Carla was inducted into The Kansas African American Museum's Trailblazers Hall of Fame in 2020 for her work in broadcast/journalism.