A city terminated a police officer for repeatedly accessing confidential law enforcement information data to obtain personal information for friends. The officer claimed that the information was public, so it was permissible for him to pass the information on to his friends. This was false, and the officer had to verify each time he signed in to the database that the information he was retrieving was for a legitimate law enforcement purpose.
After the city terminated the officer’s employment, the officer asked the superior court to review the city’s decision. The officer also claimed that the city failed to give him both the proper notice of investigation and the investigation materials that the city had relied upon as required by the Public Safety Officer’s Procedural Bill of Rights Act (POBR).
LCW was able to show that the officer received sufficient notice of the investigation and all the investigation materials that the city relied upon. LCW convinced the judge that the city had sufficient cause to terminate the officer’s employment and that the penalty of termination was within the city’s discretion.