City Hall too often falls short-of-the-mark in meeting or honoring those goals. That issue has been addressed numerous times on this blog before and will continue to get into focus on featured posts with a strong resolve.
Secrecy in government, the Supreme Court has stated, is fundamentally anti-democratic.
With that being said, let's take a look at a respected national news organization that took the time to report on local news that hasn't received much local public attention: the case of an officer-involved killing from last January 2016 where testimony just ended in the trial.
Slate reporter Amy Gajda addresses the issue of police body cam footage - just one aspect of the public right-to-know
When Public Records Aren’t Made Public
The troubling trend of judges keeping police body camera footage hidden.
By Amy Gajda Nov. 16 2017 10:35 am (See link below to the entire original source)
![Philip "Mitch" Brailsford](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_sbmCY4rKEJaspV4amFdOVpuc0qhp-oRsdsHQV8blNQoEBWXLPt10bY11ThsI7bqvDjFoQQ8KYHJuZP9VsjSGIMk1nOzrvTT50I7_1zG3loA9UtSa4aEH2fyisZo2fZj9n_MF3cgl0mJSqVlPgV7hlThjjTs-RXbJu5hXQ3yFwnQWiNebM9beTe097Srtx3FfV96ydyStOCDs7uXdIFHshayfLWJnX3zKPQym5Xvte2-NGl=s0-d "Philip "Mitch" Brailsford")
Former Mesa, Arizona police officer Philip Brailsford has been charged with second-degree murder after shooting unarmed Daniel Shaver at a hotel in January.
Those of us who weren’t in the Arizona courtroom the day the body camera video was played for the jury can’t assess either man’s behavior. That’s because the judge in Mesa police officer Philip Brailsford’s second-degree murder trial agreed with the defense that the media should not be allowed to see the video of Brailsford killing Daniel Shaver. While part of the bodycam footage was released last year, the Mesa police edited out the footage of the actual shooting. In his ruling last month, Judge George Foster agreed that the media should not get its hands on the full video evidence, even though the videotape was central to a case of intense public concern and was shown in open court. . .
Taken together, as sympathetic as the individuals in these cases may be, those decisions and the accompanying rhetoric do not bode well for public access to government documents and freedom of information. In the Arizona case, we’ll likely see the video footage as soon as the trial is over; the officer’s attorney has argued it should be kept from public view only until acquittal or sentencing."
The trial just concluded a few days ago
Image credit: Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office
"The video is said to be graphic. Taken by an officer’s body-worn camera, it apparently shows a man crawling toward the officer, looking confused. The man makes a “quick movement”—maybe it’s a move to pull up his shorts, maybe it looks like he’s about to pull out a gun—and the officer shoots him to death.
Those of us who weren’t in the Arizona courtroom the day the body camera video was played for the jury can’t assess either man’s behavior. That’s because the judge in Mesa police officer Philip Brailsford’s second-degree murder trial agreed with the defense that the media should not be allowed to see the video of Brailsford killing Daniel Shaver. While part of the bodycam footage was released last year, the Mesa police edited out the footage of the actual shooting. In his ruling last month, Judge George Foster agreed that the media should not get its hands on the full video evidence, even though the videotape was central to a case of intense public concern and was shown in open court. . .
Taken together, as sympathetic as the individuals in these cases may be, those decisions and the accompanying rhetoric do not bode well for public access to government documents and freedom of information. In the Arizona case, we’ll likely see the video footage as soon as the trial is over; the officer’s attorney has argued it should be kept from public view only until acquittal or sentencing."
The trial just concluded a few days ago
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