By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Krystal Knapp of the Internet news site Planet Princeton this week sued the municipality to force the release of documents detailing operating procedures between the Princeton Police and the Princeton University Department of Public Safety.
Ms. Knapp sought a copy of a May 2013 agreement between the two agencies and any other related information by filing a government records request on Feb.10 with the municipal clerk’s office. The town turned her down two days later “on the basis that the agreement, maps and attachments would reveal security measures,” according to her lawsuit filed in Mercer County Superior Court.
Ms. Knapp broke the story about her lawsuit on her website Friday, the same day that university trustees are in town for a meeting. The town and municipal clerk Linda McDermott, in her capacity as the government official in charge of public records, are named as defendants.
Municipal attorney Trishka W. Cecil had no comment Friday.
Back in 2013, the town released a redacted version of the agreement that did not include the jurisdictional map. The four-page document read, in part, that the police and campus public safety departments have “concurrent police jurisdiction over those geographic areas of the Princeton University campus and its vicinity which fall within the political subdivisions of the town of Princeton.”
Walter M. Luers, Ms. Knapp’s attorney who specializes in cases involving the state Open Public Records Act, said Friday that there is “no security risk” if the public “knows who handles what.”
“Policing is always an important issue in Princeton. Jurisdiction always has been and remains a concern for residents today,” Ms. Knapp’s suit read. “This concern has grown as the size and powers of the university’s Public Safety Department have grown, especially because although the university’s officers enforce laws against the residents of Princeton, they do not answer to the municipal body, but to the university and the (Mercer) County Prosecutor’s Office.”
The university’s department of public safety of more than 100 employees includes sworn and unsworn officers. The university last year decided for the first time to enable the sworn officers to have access to shotguns in limited cases when either there is an active shooter or someone is flashing a gun.
For its part, the university had no comment Friday.
Mr. Luers said he expects Ms. Knapp’s case to be heard by Mercer County assignment Judge Mary C. Jacobson, who has handled a slew of high-profile cases during her time on the bench. He called her an “excellent judge” who “calls it like she sees it.”
Mr. Luers said he had represented another media outlet a few years ago in a similar case, this one involving the editor of the news site, New Brunswick Today, and Rutgers University and the city of New Brunswick. In that case, the city released jurisdiction maps, he said.
