Urbana Spent $30K Unlawfully Concealing Police Use of Force Records

The City of Urbana, Illinois has now spent over $30,000 in their efforts to keep police use of force records secret, only to eventually release them in a lawsuit settlement.

This story started almost exactly two years ago, when Check CU requested records from the City related to instances where police used force, such as beating, pointing pistols at, or firing stun guns at suspects. The records request was made on January 29^th, 2022, and the City provided some records, but denied others.

Notable examples from the items denied by Urbana Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Officer Ross McNeil and Urbana Police FOIA Officer Tony Weck were police reports related to a July 17th, 2020 use of force incident. On that date, Urbana Police Officers Brian Ingram and Raymond Rich fought with a man and struck him multiple times, then Officer Eric Ruff shot the man with his TASER.

Urbana also refused to disclose the names of police supervisors who signed off on reports describing these use of force incidents.

Check CU made multiple attempts to attain compliance from the City, but McNeil (a City Council appointee) and Weck ignored emails and even refused to properly cite the exemptions they were claiming. On April 14^th, 2022, Check CU Founder Christopher Hansen filed a lawsuit alleging that the City of Urbana and the Urbana Police Department unlawfully denied and redacted the records.

The City hired the law firm Heyl, Royster, Voelker & Allen, who wrote in a court pleading that the withholding of certain records was “a good-faith error”, despite the fact that the City had repeatedly ignored attempts to gain compliance. In a court pleading, the City’s legal defense then went on to make lengthy and erroneous statements about their refusal to disclose police supervisor names.

At one of the court hearings, the judge made rather it clear that Urbana’s insistence on concealing the names of police supervisors seemed highly questionable.

Realizing that they were not going to prevail, Urbana eventually agreed to provide the records and settle the lawsuit. The City paid our legal fees in the amount of $12,500, and a stipulation to dismiss was filed with the court on January 4^th, 2024. The City mailed the previously denied police records on the same date.

The City’s attorney’s fees (paid to Heyl, Royster, Voelker & Allen) totaled $17,923 as of December 6^th, 2023. This brings their total expenditures to $31,423 thus far, all because they insisted on concealing police records from the public.

Urbana has had no shortage of flowery declarations over the past few years regarding police accountability and transparency. However, lawsuits like this one expose just how inconsistent public officials’ actions can be when compared to the propaganda being delivered to their constituents.

Case in point, the Urbana City Council actually passed a resolution on September 17^th, 2020 to adopt “the Ten Shared Principles”, which makes a number of glowing promises about policing, even listing “transparency” twice. However, resolutions are not actions, nor are they binding in any meaningful way. In reality, Urbana hasn’t passed a single ordinance related to policing, and instead has been vigorously and unlawfully denying access to police records for at least the past five years.

Records detailing Urbana’s $17,923 in attorney’s fees, as well as the $12,500 settlement agreement, are provided below.