Home Contra Costa County Sheriffs Office Releases CCW Permit Holders Names and Locations to ABC7

Sheriffs Office Releases CCW Permit Holders Names and Locations to ABC7

by ECT

A letter was recently mailed to Concealed Carry Weapon (CCW) Permit Holders in Contra Costa County informing them that their names and city location were released after a Public Records Request by ABC7 News.

The sheriff’s office did decline a portion of ABC7’s full request by objecting to releasing the home address of any permit holder based within accordance of the law.

According to Nate McCormack, Lieutenant with the Sheriffs Office, he cited safety and privacy concerns as to why addresses were not released.

“We try and balance the needs of the public and the people who want or need access to the information to ensure everyone’s safety,” said McCormack.

McCormack says that currently, the county has 317 CCW permits issued with 290 of them being to regular citizens. He also added that 17% of all applicants are approved.

He explained that they have a process which is followed and before it even gets to the Sheriff, an applicant must have good reason in their “cause statement” to be issued a CCW. They also most pass Department of Justice Clearance. An application must pass those two check points before it even reaches the sheriffs desk for a decision.

For example, a felon would not even make it through the first check point.

According to the Sheriffs own Conceal Carry License Permit Process, the process to obtain a CCW License includes:

  • completing the standard California Department of Justice application
  • Live Scan (electronic fingerprinting)
  • formal interview
  • training
  • collection of license fees
  • in some cases psychological testing may be required

Below is a copy of the letter sent out by the Sheriffs Office on February 6, 2017.

*Editors Note — We have withheld the name & address of the CCW Holder in the copy of the letter we received.

Dear_____:

The Office of the Sheriff has received a California Public Records Request Act from ABC7 News for the disclosure of all CCW permit holders’ names and home addresses from January 1, 2011 to date. The provisions of statutory and decisional law mandates most information contained in CCW applications and permits are subject to public disclosure. The law specifically allows for limited exceptions to public disclosure include the home addresses of permit holders employed in certain occupations, including judges, court commissioners or magistrates, deputy district attorney’s and peace officers. Names of CCW permit holders are not except from public disclosure.

In compliance with the law, the Office of the Sheriff will soon be releasing your name and city of residence as a CCW permit holder in response to the ABC7 News request. CCW permit holders in the above occupations will not have their city of residence released. The office of the Sheriff has declined to release the home address of any permit holder, regardless of occupation, in accordance with our interpretation of statutory and decisional law.  The Office of the Sheriff understands you may have well founded concerns about your privacy, including release of your home address, and the Office of the Sheriff intends to protect this privacy in balance with its obligation to comply with the law regarding public records. If, in the future, the Office of the Sheriff is in receipt of information which indicates our position on the non-disclosure of CCW holders addresses cannot be legally justified, we will be forced to release your address unless there is a qualifying statutory exception as described above.

Please contact me at (925) 335-1517 or [email protected] or my supervisor, Lieutenant Nate McCormick at (925) 335-1522 or at [email protected] if you have questions.

Sincerely,

David O. Livingston, Sheriff-Coroner
Peter Enea, Specialist
Professional Standards Division

You may also like

13 comments

Greta Hatcher Feb 21, 2017 - 3:10 pm

I want the name of all illegal aliens receiving welafare or will Governor Corrupt Brown and Kevin De Leon not provide? Of Course not since they are protecting illegals over American citizens in California

Ken Gosling Feb 24, 2017 - 1:31 pm

What good would it do? With the corruption here in CA and the dream wad as Governor, we will have the unwanted and non profitable train to La La Land, a rise in undocumented immigrants enough to keep Govenor wastewad in power of a State that will be bankrupt and have a lot of under water farmland because of Brownwads decisions to spend the repair Money for the dams and levees he’s been getting every year on these voting illegals. We will be living in a bankrupt state full of them and we can’t get rid of him because of the numbers voting him back in. With the numbers of dreamers that follow the dream wad and suck up his coolaid, and the undocumented families we are doomed to fail.

BADKarma Feb 21, 2017 - 11:08 pm

Because, of course, with their names and cities, no one could EVER use readily available internet resources to get their addresses and phone numbers, right, Sheriff?

JohnClark Feb 26, 2017 - 11:30 am

What part of “In compliance with the law” was not clear to you? The Sheriff is in the law enforcement business. Not the breaking of the law business. You want to be upset, be upset with the legislature that passed the bill and Governor who signed it into law.

The Dude Feb 22, 2017 - 7:57 am

The “sherrif” if you want to call them that are no more than the democrat private security force here in the communist state. What did you think they would do? Work for the people? That’s rich…

Old Pittsburg/Antioch Hwy Border Feb 22, 2017 - 9:48 am

Nothing worse than a news organization deciding to create news for profits. What is the purpose of revealing addresses? Nothing good can come from that information.

Jumbo Feb 24, 2017 - 6:06 am

We have constitutional carry here in Kansas and it’s a great thing. No CCW necessary but still an option if a person wants to take the class and get the permit since the surrounding states recognize CCW permits from Kansas.

Jumbo Feb 24, 2017 - 6:06 am

We have constitutional carry here in Kansas and it’s a great thing. No CCW necessary but still an option if a person wants to take the class and get the permit since the surrounding states recognize CCW permits from Kansas.

Jason Feb 25, 2017 - 5:28 pm

If anyone who was affected reads this, know that the FOIA has 9 exceptions that keep certain agencies, information, and people from the requests. In fact, exemption #6 for FOIA exemptions states that it ‘Protects information that would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy of the individuals involved.’ If you or a loved one or friend had their information given out and also posted, you need to talk to a lawyer and begin to take action against the state, the sheriff’s department, and the news agency. Good luck and enjoy the rewards that will come to pass for you. When you win, not if, but WHEN you win, send me an e-mail and let me know.

Dabathought Feb 25, 2017 - 9:32 pm

I like the part about exceptions. If you are part of creating or enforcing the law, you are protected. It’s just the tax paying citizen who loses their right to privacy under the public disclosure rules. Why is their information deemed to need a greater degree of privacy. Why is the privacy of we the people not equal to that of our cops or judges? I’d bet that if congressmen paid there own insurance premiums, the affordable care act would be affordable.

Suk Mi Feb 26, 2017 - 9:41 am

Publish the names and addresses of the “reporters” behind this. Tit for tat. Let some self-righteous libtard show up at my door.

Jim March Feb 26, 2017 - 1:50 pm

The reason the California Supreme Court made these records public was because of the possibility of corrupt handling of the permit system. California law allows sheriffs total personal discretion as to who scores the permits.

I used to live in Contra Costa County from 1998 to 2003. I had desperate need of a carry permit due to death threats when I exposed fraud against a friend. I quickly learned that gun carry permit access was in fact linked HARD to campaign contributions to the sheriff. Specifically, there was a group called the “Sheriff’s Posse” that used to be a law enforcement auxiliary reserve unit and turned into a political club. They held somewhere around 3/4ths or more of all the permits. Here’s my notes from back then on Contra Costa’s permit system:

http://www.ninehundred.net/~equalccw/posse.pdf

http://www.ninehundred.net/~equalccw/cccr.pdf – with names redacted, here’s the file on who is scoring permits.

http://www.ninehundred.net/~equalccw/cccc2.pdf – details pretty obvious racial redlining in permit access.

Notice how a lot of the permitholders are in real estate development and construction? That’s a pattern seen in a lot of California counties. What’s happening is, sheriffs sign off on environmental impact reports on major projects, specifically the crime impact and traffic impact portions. The developers were snuggling up to the sheriffs with major cash and when they do that, scoring a gun carry permit becomes easy. The same pattern was also found in Sacramento County and God knows where else; Sac County eventually gave up and as settlement of a lawsuit went “shall issue” (no more corruption).

By 2002 I was thrown out of the California NRA for complaining about this class of corruption among Republican sheriffs – in violation of their orders.

Sickpuppy70454 Feb 26, 2017 - 2:41 pm

If any of the CCW holders are ever harassed, or, God forbid, harmed in any way, they, or their relatives should sue this dumb a$$ sheriff AND the TV station for damages. Just having their names, etc. released is likely to put all of them under emotional stress. Damage claims need to be for anything that ends in “million”, maybe even in “billion”.

Comments are closed.