On February 7, President of the Arkansas Liberty Coalition, Gary Epperson, filed a civil lawsuit against Forrest City and officer Darren Smith.
In the filing, Epperson contends Forrest City is in violation of the Freedom of Information Act. Additionally, that Smith is in violation of the Arkansas Civil Rights Act, and the crime victims statute.
Court documents reflect Epperson’s FOIA requests to the FCPD on November 5, 27, December 11 and 16 of 2018. The two initial requests were related to an arrest of a persons carrying a weapon.
FCPD denied the first request, stating the case was still under investigation.
“After an investigation, it was determined that after improperly denying Gary Epperson’s request, Darren Smith had deleted Epperson’s FOIA requests.”
The alleged deletion of these requests, and the delay in response, is both a
The complaint stated, “despite repeatedly broken promises and delayed timelines from Forrest City about compliance, Forrest City has yet to comply with either the December 11 or December 16 FOIA requests.”
Epperson noted that the ALC has exhausted all efforts to retain the requested
The ALC, which formed in 2013, has more than 16k plus members. According to Epperson, the ALC was formed “to stand up for the every day citizens of the state. The second amendment is the bedrock of the ALC, although we cover other areas other than the second amendment. From this point forward, after Taff vs Arkansas, the ALC will pursue
The Arkansas Liberty Coalition’s attorney, Whitfield Hyman, is asking the court to set the hearing within seven days of the filing.
We need organizations to stand up for the wrong doings of sheriffs depts and officers, courts sure won’t
Thank you Gary for all the hard work you put in on this.
happy to hear this.independence county forced me to rid my house of all firearms last feb.it took me a month to get them back.in court it was stated by the prosecuting attorney that the sheriff had charged for a crime that was not commited and I got my firearms back but no apologies and a lot of cost on my part
Are there any orgs. Like this in Missouri just moved from ar. Before seein ur group.
Good ro see ur numbers growin.
David, sorry to hear of your situation. Of course the reason they get away with a lot of this is because of the costs involved. They have unlimited funds stolen from “taxpayers” and you don’t.