The Brookhaven Police Department Record, in My Words

This page covers one narrow thing: how the Brookhaven Police Department handled records, communication, and access. It is a records and response time record, and that is all it is ever going to be.

Page context

Institution	Brookhaven Police Department, a department of the City of Brookhaven
Timeframe	2025 to 2026
What this page covers	Records handling, response times, and communication
Scope	Public records handling and official communication only. Individuals appear only as public officials acting in official roles.
Related	The City of Brookhaven record and the The Receipts

The comparison that does the work

The Brookhaven Police Department answers the public’s records requests in about 1.3 days on average. That is the department’s own published figure, not mine.

My requests averaged 60 days.

Same department. Same statute. Same clock. About forty six times longer.

I am not going to tell you why, because I do not know why, and this site does not invent reasons. I am going to put both numbers on a public page, because the gap is a fact and the department has never explained it despite being asked.

What happened with the records

I filed under the Georgia Open Records Act after the City refused to discuss a simple complaint by email, in person, or on the phone.

• The City priced a single request at $49,385, and its demands across my requests reached $58,603.85.
• On March 6 and March 9, 2026, 36 of my requests were closed for “lack of approval of provided estimate”, 20 of them in 5 minutes and 38 seconds.
• I paid hundreds of dollars and received almost nothing.
• My requests for an explanation went unanswered.

The City issued estimates for records work. On March 6 and March 9, 2026, it closed 36 of my requests for “lack of approval of provided estimate,” 20 of them in 5 minutes and 38 seconds. The closure time measures a portal decision, not how long a records search would take. I still wanted the City to explain the estimates and the closures.

What Georgia cities may charge . When a request is priced out of reach

Why records handling cases here

A police department’s records function is not administrative housekeeping. It is the only way an ordinary person can see what a department did and said.

When that function answers the general public in a day and a third, and answers one particular resident in two months, the practical result is that the resident cannot check anything on the same terms as everyone else. Whatever the reason, the effect is a two speed system, and only one of the speeds is published.

For a disabled person the effect compounds. Every additional round of correspondence is more voice to text and more days lost. A delay is not neutral when the cost of waiting falls unevenly.

What should have happened

• Records requests answered on the same published timetable as everyone else’s.
• An itemised estimate for any charge, so a price can be understood and questioned.
• A written reason, dated and attributed, whenever a request is closed.
• A published, accessible route for a person with a disability to raise a problem with any of the above.
• An answer, of any kind, when a resident asks why.

Open questions

These remain unanswered. Each one can be answered with a sentence and a date.

• What accounts for the difference between the department’s published average response time and the time taken on my requests?
• On what basis was each request closed, on what date, and by whom?
• How was the fee estimate calculated, by task and by role?
• The City publishes an ADA Coordinator and a Title II grievance procedure, and has since at least October 17, 2020. Was either offered as a route for a disability related problem with records access, and if so, on what date?

Current status

Unresolved. No explanation has been provided for the response time difference, for the closures, or for the fee calculation. This page is document based and entries are added as they are reviewed and sourced.

Back to the Brookhaven Police Department hub

ADA Matters welcomes documented corrections. Write to info@adamatters.com with the correct fact and its source.