Team Rodent - Carl Hiaasen [9]
On the night of August 31, 1994, Disney World guards spotted two young men goofing around on the roof of a covered walkway at the Contemporary Resort. The young men quickly scrambled to the ground, ran to a pickup truck, and sped away. A Disney security van pursued, its red lights flashing.
The chase reached speeds approaching eighty miles per hour. A mile outside Disney World’s gates, the pickup crashed, killing the passenger, eighteen-year-old Robb Sipkema.
In Florida, all traffic deaths are investigated by the state highway patrol. The troopers assigned to the Sipkema case found Disney not at all helpful. Incredibly, the company refused to let them interview Susan Buckland, the “security hostess” who was at the wheel of the van during the pursuit. Disney also declined to release transcripts of the radio communications between Buckland and the company dispatcher during the fatal chase. The lead investigator, Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Scott Walter, complained to the Orlando Sentinel that Disney officials “would only release the information that wouldn’t hurt them.”
Robb Sipkema’s parents sued, setting off a legal battle that has partially raised the curtain on Disney’s private government. The Sipkemas charged that the security guard caused their son’s death by pursuing the pickup truck, even though she was not a sworn law enforcement officer. Buckland said she did nothing wrong and never drove her vehicle off Disney property that night.
Florida has a broad public-records law that applies to all state and local government entities— including, one would reasonably assume, the Reedy Creek Improvement District. Because Disney provides policelike services for Reedy Creek, the family of Robb Sipkema demanded a copy of the company’s security manual and policy on traffic control.
Disney said no. Its attorneys asserted that, as a private corporation, Disney wasn’t required to open its records.
Eventually Team Rodent voluntarily produced the security manual, but the Sipkemas pressed for more files. Their lawyers noted that Disney and Reedy Creek were one and the same, and that Disney security guards acted as a de facto police force. The “hosts” and “hostesses” conducted traffic stops, answered 911 calls, and investigated crimes “to the point of arrest.” When communicating over the radio, they even spoke in the same 10-codes as real cops.
It wasn’t enough to convince Orange County Circuit Judge Belvin Perry Jr. He sided with Disney, ruling that its law enforcement activities at Reedy Creek were part of a private security arrangement—in other words, a contract with itself. Bottom line: The public, including the Sipkemas, would not be allowed to see internal company documents.
The decision rankled lots of folks familiar with the Reedy Creek charade, especially those in Orange County. In 1990 they had competed with the district for $57.7 million in tax-free bonds. Orange officials needed to raise money for low-income housing. Reedy Creek wanted to expand the sewage-treatment capacity for Disney’s fast-growing theme parks.
The county’s poor lost out. Mickey and Minnie won.
So if Disney enjoys the powers of municipal government, including the right to sell tax-free bonds, shouldn’t it be governed by the same laws of open disclosure? In 1997 an appeals court said no, upholding the ruling against Robb Sipkema’s family, the state attorney general, and several newspapers that had joined the lawsuit. The panel of judges agreed with the trial court’s puzzling position that Disney guards aren’t like real police and perform only basic “night watchman” duties.
Which apparently have been broadened to include high-speed car chases of suspected trespassers. “Outrageous,” said John Hargrove, one of the lawyers who argued for the side of the Sipkemas. “Talk about a family getting screwed.”
Without access to Disney’s files, the Sipkemas hit a wall. They have dropped the lawsuit over their