Man says Ky. dispatch employees opened his package at FedEx store to redact documents

LAUREL CO., Ky. (WKYT) - Kentucky State Police say Doug Harless was shot and killed in his home by a London Police officer last month.

Since that shooting, police have remained tight-lipped about the case as questions have swirled through the community. Those unanswered questions have led journalists and citizens to file numerous open records requests.

One man says his attempt to obtain records from one Laurel County agency put him in a unique situation with officials.

When Elijah Jarvis filed an open records request with London-Laurel County 911, he says he thought the records he’d receive would be the most interesting part of the story. However, he says that’s not the case.

“Last Tuesday, I made an open records request,” said Jarvis.

The request was for records showing who had received a copy of a dispatch phone call without an open records request.

That call was between Judge Executive David Westerfield and a London police officer from the morning after Doug Harless was shot and killed by police. It was first shared on a newly created YouTube page.

“I wanted to see who leaked the audio on January the 8th,” said Jarvis.

Because he wanted hard copies of the records, the agency mailed them to his home.

However, Jarvis says he came home to a note from FedEx saying he could pick up the package at the store. He went to the store and handed the note to the woman at the counter.

“She says this has never happened before. These gentlemen, over here in the corner, actually have your package,” said Jarvis.

Jarvis says those two men later identified themselves as Larry Walls and Tyler Pearce from London-Laurel County 911.

“He said, We’re redacting information, and we’re removing information that wasn’t pertinent to this open records request,” said Jarvis.

State law allows agencies to exclude or redact certain information from an open records request. However, that agency is also supposed to explain to the requestor what statute allows them to do so.

“They said, look, you know, we had to redact information and we had to remove information. They didn’t tell me why and they didn’t tell me what. They just handed me what was left,” said Jarvis.

Jarvis says he reached out to the FBI to see if what Walls and Pearce did was illegal. WKYT reached out to the FBI to see if they were looking into the incident. They told us they “did receive an allegation concerning a Fedex package, but after consulting with USPIS, it was found that no federal violation occurred.”

London-Laurel County 911 acknowledged the situation in a letter shared on their Facebook page, which you can read below. WKYT’s Samantha Valentino reached out to Walls and Pearce to ask them more questions about what happened at the FedEx store, but they said they stand by their original statement.

https://www.wymt.com/2025/01/31/man-says-ky-dispatch-employees-opened-his-package-fedex-store-redact-documents/