Police reports and records related to arrests and other law enforcement actions by tribal police officers are not available for public inspection under Wisconsin’s open records laws even if they relate to police activity off the reservation and non-tribal citizens, the state attorney general's office told The Lakeland Times late last week.
The Times had posed the question to the Wisconsin Department of Justice after some citizens raised concerns about their ability to access police and incident records if they were ticketed or arrested in Oneida County by a Lac du Flambeau police department officer. In an Oct. 3 letter to the newspaper, assistant attorney general Mary Burke said tribal police departments could not be compelled to comply with the open records law or to waive tribal immunity from lawsuits to enforce that law.
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