Community members may be one step closer to seeing DC police body cam footage from two controversial confrontations with people in Northeast DC.
Those incidents led to accusations DC police officers violated resident’s constitutional rights and provoked angry clashes with residents in the Deanwood Community.
On Thursday, the ACLU District of Columbia received a ruling from the city, challenging a decision by the DC Police Department not to release that body cam footage.
“It’s about transparency and it’s about making sure that the government doesn’t just do whatever it wants,” said ACLU legal fellow Shana Knizhnik, who filed the appeal.
RELATED: Community groups call on mayor to release body cam video of police confrontations in Deanwood
What police did, and whether officers acted properly during a June 13th Stop and Frisk on Sheriff Road in Deanwood, and June 25th when frustrated neighbors clashed with equally combative police officers, remains unclear.
FOIA Appeal 2018-145 Decision by WUSA9-TV on Scribd
The incidents led to a day of hearings by of DC Council, in which councilmembers questioned and criticized the officers’ tactics.
Police Chief Peter Newsham and Mayor Muriel Bowser have defended officers’ actions in both cases saying the officers body cam video puts both incidents in a different light.
But as recently as July 30th, Mayor Bowser had refused to override the police department’s refusal to release the body cam footage to WUSA 9 because it was part of an ongoing investigation.
The ACLU District of Columbia and at least 21 other community groups also asked the Mayor to release the body cam video, arguing the "significant public interest" in the Deanwood incidents give the Mayor the authority to override the police departments decision.
But in an apparent about face, the Mayor’s Office of Legal Counsel has now sided with an appeal filed by the ACLU DC, ruling in effect, DC Police had to prove that releasing the video would interfere with the fairness of legal proceedings related to the incidents themselves, and the department had failed to do that.
The letter gives the police department five days to either produce the body cam footage or give a better explanation why it won’t.
“If everything is ok about what they did then why shouldn’t they release this video? To allay those concerns,” Knizhnik said. “The fact that they haven’t released the video, the fact that they refuse to do so, indicates that the statements from MPD that they are all about transparency, well they’re simply not true.”
DC Police have released body worn camera video of officer involved shootings within weeks of the incidents, most recently Terrence Sterling. It has now been two months since the incidents in Deanwood.
WUSA 9 has asked both DC Police and the Mayor’s Office for comment but have yet to get a response.
