by Sue Britt
staff editor

The on-campus arrest of Darwin Butler, the Student Government Association president, on July 29 for a minor offense may be developing into a First Amendment issue.

Requests by The Current for the arrest records related to Butler made to the UM-St. Louis and Bel-Ridge Police Departments were initially denied. The first requests were made Monday, Aug. 16. Michael McAvoy, prosecuting attorney for the city of Bel-Ridge, said that those records were closed according to Missouri Statute 610.100.

Paragraph two of the statute reads in part, "Each law enforcement agency of this state, of any county and any municipality, shall maintain records of all incidents reported to the agency, investigations, and arrests made by such law enforcement agency. All incident reports and arrest reports shall be open records."

On Thursday The Current delivered a request to the UM-St. Louis police for a written statement explaining the grounds for the denial of access to Butler's arrest records. On Friday similar requests were faxed to the Bel-Ridge Police Department, to McAvoy, and to Thomas Flach, a Bel-Ridge judge.

UM-St. Louis Chief of Police Robert Roeseler decided to fax the request to UM-System attorneys in Columbia, and at their advice Butler's arrest record was released early Friday morning. Bel-Ridge did not respond.

Missouri Statute 610.023 deals with denial of access issues, among other issues related to records. It contains a provision that defines the procedure that governmental bodies must follow if they have denied access and have received a request for their reasoning. The statute reads, in part, "Such statement shall cite the specific provision of law under which access is denied and shall be furnished to the requester no later than the end of the third business day following the date that the request for the statement is received."

A media law attorney for the Missouri Press Association, Jean Maneke, said the law requires police departments to release these records and that the reasoning behind the law is not solely based on freedom of the press.

"Clearly the law says that arrest records are open records and this applies to any arrest record whether it's a student, private citizen or the president of the United States," Maneke said. "One of the foundations on which this country was formed was that law enforcement should never be able to come to your home and take you away and people not know what happened to you."

The arrest record provided to The Current by the UM-St. Louis Police Department states that Butler's arrest classification is that of fugitive. It further states that Butler was driving with a suspended driver's license.

Police officer Marvin Blake wrote in his report, "I was advised by Chief Roeseler that he had observed Butler driving a motor vehicle while Butler's driver's licenses have been suspended by th(e) (s)tates of Missouri and Nevada."

Butler deferred to his attorney, William Gavras, for comment and Gavras declined to comment.