MINNEAPOLIS (Legal Newsline) - Although the transcripts of bodycam footage of George Floyd’s death during an arrest by Minneapolis police officers were released last week, the videos are still under wraps - a curious development to one Fourth Amendment expert.
“If the transcripts are something that can be released without impacting any issues of the ongoing investigation, then it would seem that the video itself would be just as easy to release,” said Michael Benza, an attorney and senior instructor of law in policing and the Fourth Amendment at Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
The transcripts were included in a motion filed on July 8 by defendant Officer Thomas Lane to dismiss the charges against him.
“As a result, they are now in the possession of the Court. The Court has not yet released them. It will be up to the Court to decide if or when or how to release them," said John Stiles, deputy chief of staff with the Office of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.
Lane was among the four police officers present when Floyd was first arrested over an alleged counterfeit $20 bill. He died after Officer Derek Chauvin pinned his neck to the ground with a knee for almost nine minutes. Ellison is pursuing murder charges against Chauvin and aiding and abetting charges against other officers who were present.
“It is important, especially for police interactions with the public, that body camera footage be available so that the public can make their determination of whether that use of government resource or force was appropriate in this situation,” said Andrew Geronimo, an attorney and professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law’s First Amendment Clinic.
According to the Star Tribune, where the transcript is posted, Floyd repeatedly begged for his life.
“Our office had nothing to do with the motion and did not have advance notice that it was going to be filed,” Stiles told Legal Newsline. “I do not have a copy of the transcript because we did not release it.”
It was in 2013 that some one-third of police departments in the U.S. began enlisting cameras worn on the bodies of officers, according to the Department of Justice. Today, upwards of 58 percent of police departments nationwide employ body cameras as previously reported.
“Some states have difficulty applying their public records law to police worn bodycam footage because they're used to dealing with records and live video with very dynamic footage and scenes can create new problems like violations of privacy,” Geronimo told Legal Newsline. “So, there are some things that would happen in police video that we might not want to make public, such as victims of certain crimes.”
Overall, police body camera footage is an evolving area of law.
“We've had body cameras for a period of time but we are still working our way through the policies, practices and procedures for dealing with them on a macro level, not just an officer involved in shooting cases, but in every interaction that law enforcement has,” Benza told Legal Newsline.
When asked when the bodycam footage would be released before the court made the transcript available, Stiles said on July 2 that there is an ongoing investigation. “The body-camera footage is evidence in the investigation along with many other kinds of evidence,” he said. “There is no current timeline for releasing it.”
However, Benza reports that the fact that there is an ongoing investigation isn’t generally a reason to withhold bodycam video footage.
“I would want to know the concrete, legal reason that he cannot turn that out,” Benza said.