It is incumbent upon all Department members to recognize the importance and long term ramifications of retaining relevant administrative documentation/materials for the purpose of protecting the Department and its members from civil liability.
Administrative documentation/materials with potential civil value, which are produced at the Unit level, and that have no other established storage or retention guidelines, or whose civil value may exceed established guidelines, shall be retained by that Unit. These items may include, but are not limited to, recorded interviews, photographs, items associated with use of force reviews and service reviews in response to service comments, miscellaneous non-criminal audio and video tapes, etc. Items with specified statutory retention/disposal periods may also be included, such as copies of DDWS, SCC tapes, booking photographs, jailer's records, etc.
All the above mentioned documentation/materials are potentially discoverable in a court of law and are therefore subject to subpoena. If there are any questions regarding relinquishing control of administrative documentation/materials to persons outside the Department, the Civil Litigation Unit shall be consulted for advice.
The concerned Unit Commander shall be responsible for the security, recordation and disposition of all administrative documentation/materials that have been determined to have potential civil value. The Unit Commander shall ensure that such documentation/materials are maintained separately from Station/Unit crime evidence and retained for not less than two years from the date of recordation. Documentation, materials and other items that are associated with incidents tracked by LARCIS will be retained for the same period of time as the incident retention listed in LARCIS.
A person of the rank of Lieutenant or equivalent shall be designated to manage and supervise the storage system, and to coordinate its function with other Bureaus/Units which have an interest in the items stored. The Lieutenant shall ensure that each item is properly identified with pertinent information such as the date the item was collected, by whom, any relevant file numbers and a brief description of the item stored. A catalog shall be put in place which records the storage, retrieval and ultimate disposition of all collected items. Once the minimum two year retention period has been realized, destruction of items is permissible unless further retention has been requested by the Civil Litigation Unit. If documentation, materials and other items are associated with incidents tracked by LARCIS they will not be destroyed, but will be retained for the same period of time as the incident retention listed in LARCIS.