Public Complaint No. 1754258996 - 1665969639

Joshua Cottrell

Los Altos Police Department

1 N San Antonio Road

Los Altos, California 94022

(650) 947-2770

http://www.losaltos…

Date of Offense

January 22, 2018

Complaint

Detention

Supporting Document(s)

PH JOUBERT - Los Altos Police - Notice of No Complaint March 26 2018.pdf

Statement

Officer Joshua Cottrell (1) blatantly lied under perjury about the readings on his hand-held breath analyzer, (2) on purpose did not showed the reading and (3) on purpose ensured that no bodycam video of the reading was visible. He never showed me the reading but claimed it read 0.13 BAC. He had to replace the mouth piece at least twice and mentioned that it is too cold for the instrument to work properly. I also had to blow multiple times before he announced the result without showing me the actual reading.

Subsequent blood tests confirmed 0.000 BAC.

I retained Mr James Dunn, Senior Trial Attorney, as legal representative. The direct legal costs amounted to $7,000 and my time and effort to redirect and resolve the case amounted to an additional $3,000.

Location

Foothill Expy, Palo Alto, CA, USA

37.3999987, -122.1376635

California Public Records Act

§ 6250-6268

The California Public Records Act is a series of laws meant to guarantee that the public has access to public records of governmental bodies in California. In December of 2011, a Superior Court judge ruled that the California Assembly must also disclose budget records of individual lawmakers, after some California newspapers filed a lawsuit accusing legislators of flouting the state’s open records laws.

Public records in the California Public Records Act are defined as “any writing containing information relating to the conduct of the public’s business prepared, owned, used, or retained by any state or local agency regardless of physical form or characteristics.” There is a separate category of “purely personal information” that, although it may be in the custody of a government agency, does not fall under the act. Statute 6255 states a catch all exemption, “The agency shall justify withholding any record by demonstrating that the record in question is exempt under express provisions of this chapter or that on the facts of the particular case the public interest served by not disclosing the record clearly outweighs the public interest served by disclosure of the record.”

Anyone can request public documents in California, and a purpose does not have to be stated. The California Public Records Act does not regulate the use of records obtained from public agencies. One should allow 10 days for an agency to comply with a records request.