A bill allowing the public access to records kept by campus police departments at private and nonprofit universities was signed into law by Gov. Pat McCrory Wednesday.
Ratified June 5, House Bill 142 increases transparency for police departments of private universities. As a result, arrest and other investigative police records are now public information. These records must also be made available to municipal, county and state law enforcement agencies.
This new legislation follows a case filed by Nick Ochsner, a former student, against Elon University in 2011, after he was denied access to a complete 2010 arrest and incident report. At the time the N.C. Supreme Court split 3-3 on an earlier N.C. Court of Appeals decision that said campus police departments are not public law enforcement agencies.