Police-raid reports kept from media

OREM — The Utah County Attorney's Office refuses to release initial police reports about the raids of two Spanish Fork canyon parties.

The office has classified as private and protected the arrest and case reports that were done by police officers after they disbanded so-called "rave parties" on July 16 and Aug. 20.

The county attorney's office says such a classification is sufficient grounds to deny a request by the Deseret Morning News to release the documents to the public.

However, under Utah State Code, arrest reports aren't private and case reports should not be classified as protected, said Salt Lake attorney Jeff Hunt, who works often with news media seeking information from governments through the Government Records Access and Management Act.

The act was created in 1992 to help classify government information and identify who has access to what information, as clarified through the state code.

Each city or county is also allowed to create a "record retention schedule," or a way to classify hundreds of documents and make the entire record-keeping process easier.

But the Utah County General Records Retention Schedule must be consistent with state code, said Hunt. "They can't create different classifications on what's public and what's not — that's the problem here. State law trumps county ordinances."

However, regardless of the current classification, the Utah County Attorney's Office also said the documents wouldn't be made available because Utah County Attorney Kay Bryson, along with Utah County Sheriff James Tracy and the Utah County Commission, now face a federal lawsuit over the raids.

"Even if at this point there were additional initial contact reports, I may not be interested in letting anything else out, due to the fact that it might be detrimental (to) the lawsuit at this point," said Chris Yannelli, deputy Utah County attorney assigned to deal with GRAMA requests.

The desired records were completed by officers after they broke up the dance parties, which were held at the same place in the canyon. They were broken up because officials expected the parties would exceed the allowed 12-hour gathering time allowed by county ordinance and organizers did not have a permit for such a long event.

During the raid, officials also discovered the sale and use of illegal drugs. Firearms also were discovered on people at the event.