Amidst investigation into the Tallahassee Police Department’s treatment of Florida State University athletes, police release reporter’s personal information. (Photo by Jackson Myers via Creative Commons)
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Center for Investigative Reporting
The Tallahassee Police Department recently released hundreds of police reports involving Florida State University athletes—as well as the personal information of the reporter who requested the records.
On Christmas Eve, according to Poynter, the non-profit journalism education center, TPD publicly released ESPN reporter Paula Lavigne’s original request – which included her cell phone number—along with the records she requested. The records, Poynter reported, are part of “an apparent investigation of the police department’s treatment of the athletes.” The police department released the records indiscriminately, and not solely to the reporter making the request, Lavigne, which is unusual. The sports journalism website Deadspin.com wrote that when police released the records request publicly, they were “essentially tipping off everyone to what she’s working on. ”
The Tallahassee Democrat reported,
The Tallahassee Police Department on Wednesday released hundreds of police reports related to Florida State University athletes in response to an ESPN public records request.
The request came after TPD and FSU were the subject of major investigative stories by the New York Times earlier this year. The Times articles focused mostly on how the agency and the department handle police run ins involving FSU players, including quarterback Jameis Winston.
Paula Lavigne, an ESPN reporter for the show “Outside the Lines,” in September requested police records for the names of 360 FSU athletes, which produced 300 police reports TPD handed over to ESPN on Wednesday. The records include reports in which the names of athletes were listed as either a witness, victim, suspect or reporting party, according to TPD spokesman David Northway.
TPD alerted local media to the request Wednesday afternoon.
Northway said a misstep was noted while sifting through the records.
Tallahassee police have been the focus of a lot of investigative reporting this year.
Earlier this year The New York Times chronicled how police in Tallahassee bungled the investigation of an alleged rape case involving FSU’s star player Jameis Winston.
This past October, the Times covered a similar situation. According to the newspaper, Tallahassee police did not properly investigate a domestic violence case involving another FSU football player.
The Times reported that last January witnesses called 911 warning that “a man was beating a woman holding a baby outside their apartment as she tried to leave.” However, little was done to address the matter.
The Tallahassee Democrat reported this week that in the records released, there was information about a sexual assault case involving an FSU football player that “had a piece of evidence that was not immediately processed.”
Police officials said that evidence “ultimately had no impact on the case” and “the case was subsequently reclosed.”
Police also released information about an aggravated assault case that is currently under investigation “in which Running back Dalvin Cook is listed as an associate in the case,” The Democrat reported.
Just recently, retired state Supreme Court Justice Major Harding ruled that Jameis Winston did not violate FSU’s student conduct code due to a lack of evidence.