BALTIMORE COUNTY POLICE

JAMES W. JOHNSON
Chief of Police

Headquarters
700 East Joppa Road
Towson, MD 21286
(410) 887 - 2214
Fax (410) 821 - 8887
bcopd@baltimorecountymd.gov
www.baltimorecountymd.gov/police

April 15, 2016
Alex Campbell, Reporter
BuzzFeed, Inc.
111 E. 18th Street
13th Floor
New York, NY 10003
Sent via electronic mail only
Dear Mr. Campbell,
The Baltimore County Police Department (hereinafter the “Department”) received your
revised letter under the Maryland Public Information Act (hereinafter “The Act”) for copies of
“45 unfounded rape cases reported by Baltimore County PD in 2014.”
Due to Maryland Law requiring a response within ten (10) days, I have no way of
determining if there are in fact 45 unfounded rape cases in 2014 and whether I will be able to
locate documents related to these cases. Once each case is found, an attorney from the Legal
Section will have to redact information which is not subject to public release, explained in more
detail below. Prepayment of the copying fee would be required prior to providing any documents
responsive to your request.
The Department is authorized to charge a reasonable fee for (i) the search for, preparation
of, and reproduction of a public record prepared, on request of the applicant, in a customized
format; and (ii) the actual costs of the search for, preparation of, and reproduction of a public
record in standard format, including media and mechanical processing costs. This fee shall
include the prorated amount based on the salary of the attorney assigned to fulfill your request
and the time attributed to responding to your request. The Department may not charge a fee for
the first 2 hours that are needed to search for a public record and prepare it for inspection.
Baltimore County has set this fee rate to be $60 per hour for an attorney.

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 Each report would have to be printed and reviewed to redact medical information, as
required under Maryland Code, General Provisions Article § 4-329(b) and Health General
Article § 4-302. I estimate that the copying and reviewing of each report would require 10 hours
of time by an attorney from our office in order to produce the reports. Therefore, the cost would
be $480.00. If you wish to receive the reports in response to your request, please send a check in
the amount of $480.00, made payable to Baltimore County, Maryland, to the following
address:
Baltimore County Police Department
Attn: Legal Section
700 E. Joppa Road, 9th Floor
Towson, Maryland 21286

Sincerely,

Shawn Vinson
Shawn Vinson