Sgt. Jordan Mazur spent eight years deciding what the public could — and couldn’t — know about the NYPD. Now, he’s written a how-to guide for prying records out of government agencies’ hands.

New York's Freedom of Information Law, also known as FOIL, grants the public the right to request records from government agencies. Mazur, who most recently served as the NYPD’s records access appeals officer, has self-published a step-by-step manual, "FOIL Made Simple," that guides individuals on how to obtain important documents from bureaucracies that may be predisposed to resist disclosure.

Mazur's book offers a rare glimpse behind the curtain from someone who has fielded tens of thousands of requests at one of the city's busiest agencies. In the book, he urges patience, personal relationships and precision as the keys to success.

And his number one tip? Be polite.

"It's easier to work with people when they're not just a number," he said. "You understand each other.”

But transparency advocates have said Mazur’s advice — while practical — underscores a deeper problem: Getting public records in New York still depends more on charm than on law, and the NYPD routinely delays or refuses to provide records it wants to keep hidden, regardless of how polite the requester is.

In his book, Mazur writes that agencies "must step up to meet the growing demand for transparency," via more funding and staffing. But he also places responsibility on the requesters to craft more specific, professional asks — and to build rapport with the people processing them.

A spokesperson for the NYPD said the department has increased staffing in the records office to 29 employees as of this year. The spokesperson said staffers are a mix of civilian and uniformed officers, who are especially helpful in finding records that require an institutional knowledge of the department.

FOIL requests flood the NYPD … and delays are common

The NYPD received more FOIL requests than any other city agency in 2024 — 37,537 in total, according to a Reinvent Albany analysis of OpenRecords data. On average, the department closed requests in 78 days, faster than the citywide average of 91 days.

But a separate report by city Comptroller Brad Lander found the NYPD failed to respond to 25% of body-worn camera footage requests within 25 business days. The average turnaround was 133 business days, and in some cases, it took more than four years.

When denials were appealed due to delay or improper denials, the NYPD reversed its decision 97% of the time — a sign that the department is slow or overly restrictive in its initial FOIL decisions, the audit found.

"The whole purpose of body-worn cameras is transparency," Lander said in October. "Failing to provide the footage as required by law fundamentally undermines the whole purpose of the program."

An NYPD spokesperson faulted the audit’s methodology, saying comparisons to pandemic years were unfair and the comptroller was exaggerating the department’s response times.

Advocates say compliance is the real problem

Bobby Hodgson, assistant legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said it was “interesting” to see someone affiliated with the NYPD penning such a guide on acquiring information.

"I think our experience with that agency is one where they have, for a very long time, been really deficient in the way they respond to FOILs," Hodgson said.

Hodgson also pushed back on Mazur’s advice that a polite request would yield better results. He said the onus rests with the NYPD, which he said should better engage with the requesters.

"It is not necessarily the case that people are able to access the folks who are responding to their FOILs in a timely way," he said. "I think that's often a challenge when working with the NYPD."

He added that the NYCLU employed its own FOIL toolkit to help people navigate the process.

An NYPD spokesperson said it was a false premise that a requester has to form a relationship to obtain public records.

Mazur acknowledged the department’s records unit is overwhelmed. He said the office has typically had around 15 staffers — and never more than 20 — but requests for more personnel were routinely denied, with the department prioritizing its crime-fighting mission.

"The response sometimes was, 'That's great, but we have this issue in this precinct and this issue in this borough and this issue citywide.' It was always a battle," Mazur said. "I would never say that it was a willful decision to withhold records by withholding personnel."

This story has been updated with new information and additional comment from the NYPD.