The missing Brock Turner mugshot issue has escalated quickly this morning. First brought to my attention by Elisa in her status this morning I've been pursuing a mugshot, as have a number of other journalists from what I've seen on Twitter. Thus far I'd just been updating in the comment thread over on Elisa's profile, but I've been asked to give updates in a lot of threads as the day has wore on. I haven't minded that at all, but for the sake of efficiency I'm putting up a full overview of what we know thus far here and making this post public so it can easily be shared and followed without you all having to wait for me to come and put it up in comments where your friends are asking for more info. I will update in the comments of this post if/when I receive further response, and I've made my profile followable by the public so if people want to follow along they can.

The nutshell as of 3:56 pm EST; June 6, 2016:

- Stanford Dept. of Public Safety was the arresting body. When I requested the picture from them this morning they told me they take all arrestees to Santa Clara County for booking and I should call them.

- I spoke with Sgt. James Jensen at Santa Clara county who told me they have a policy of not releasing photos from arrests made by another agency and that SUDPS has access to the photo and should be the one to release it.

- Called SUDPS back, they told me they do not consider mugshots public record. I asked what statute they were citing for defense of that position and was told Cal. Gov't 6254(f). Which is a law that exempts "investigatory documents" from public records. There has been litigation over it that has gone both ways, but there's a strong case to be made that booking photos do not qualify for the exemption. Not the least of the reasons for which is that a mugshot doesn't reveal anything that they're not mandated to provide -- namely a detailed appearance of the suspect -- anyway. But also because there are cases going right up to the CA Supreme Court that say something has to be clearly investigatory "on its face" or it doesn't qualify for exemption. It should also be noted that 6254(f) is discretionary. While they *can* invoke it for exemption of investigatory documents they do not *have* to, they are legally allowed to release whatever they want. So even if there were a valid reason to believe it investigatory, their own choice is the only thing stopping them from giving it out.

- I sent a follow up email detailing these objections and citing a couple cases to SUDPS which I've attached below. I haven't heard back, but will update publicly on my profile once I do since this is gaining a lot of interest in multiple threads now.

- Word on the social media street is that someone from BoingBoing is filing an FOIA as well. If they don't respond to me in email I may consider doing the same. I would be surprised if they do release it without going to court though. I expect they will respond to the email and FOIA the same way they did on the phone, citing 6254(f).

- SUDPS has a history of posting mugshots on their website, demonstrating an inconsistent policy.

- SUDPS keeps an incident blog on their site, basically a police blotter. There are many instances of "reported sexual assault" where the perpetrator cannot be identified, they just have a description. Yet, this incident was was never logged at all. Convenient.

[UPDATE] Things have continued to escalate quickly (especially on Twitter) with the release of the photo this afternoon, which appears to be a sentencing photo, not an original arrest photo. Please keep in mind this is an updated-as-it-happens thread and so I'm still working on it and have both been calling and emailing for more information since they sent this one at 4:30. These things take time. Thanks for the patience folks.