Balancing safety with your rights

By John Estus

Published: September 8, 2007

Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater said in an e-mail that the county commissioner caused a "security breach” by making the jail floor plan available online and asked that the document be immediately removed from Rinehart's District 2 Web site.

"It's an officer safety issue, as well as safety for the citizens,” said Sheriff John Whetsel, who learned of the posting Friday from a state jail inspector. "If we put detailed plans up on the Internet to guide people in assisting escapes or directing escapes, then we put our public at risk and we put our deputies and detention officers at high risk.”

Whetsel contacted Prater after the jail inspector raised concern.

Prater said he was addressing a security concern and wasn't questioning Rinehart's legal right to post the document.

"This was not an open records issue,” Prater said. "Based upon recent events, including the recent near-successful jail break, it raised immediate concerns in my mind.”

A group of inmates took detention officers hostage and nearly escaped from the jail May 8.

In the e-mail, sent Friday to county commissioners and the county's information technology director, Prater said the document's presence on the Internet "poses an immediate threat.”

Where the plan came from

County staff eventually removed the floor plan, which was included in a comprehensive jail study posted on the District 2 Web site.

Documents prepared by third parties and delivered to government agencies become public records, according to the state Open Records Act. The Facility Group study was also presented during jail task force meetings, which were conducted under state open meetings laws.

"It's kind of strange,” Rinehart said. "It was presented in an open meeting, and it was presented to the board and accepted as a document by the Board of County Commissioners.”

The study including the jail floor plan was put online last week when Rinehart launched a redesign of the District 2 Web site. In a news release, he said the new design "raises the standard of government transparency” and included open records that have "never before been distributed to the public.”

The site includes records on the budget, jail and programs Rinehart has proposed.

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