Court shields public video of officer’s death
APD lacks disclosure policy on release of such camera images
A video introduced as evidence in federal court Monday shows Albuquerque officer Daniel Webster being fatally wounded.
An Albuquerque police detective described how she and other officers watched the video on a cellphone the night of the shooting to try to get information about the suspect.
But even though the shooting was more than a year ago, police haven’t released the video to the public, citing a law enforcement exception to state sunshine laws.
And a federal judge has issued an order that video and audio evidence against Davon Lymon not be released until possible state charges against him are settled.
“The following case is being handled by the United States Attorney’s Office and Attorney General’s Office. We have been advised that we cannot release the files pertaining to this case at this time,” Celina Espinoza, a police spokeswoman, said in an email.
“They have stated that the prosecution of their respective criminal cases would be compromised by the release of the confidential information contained in the records that are requested.”
Police have said Lymon is suspected of shooting
and fatally wounding Webster during a traffic stop in northeast Albuquerque in October 2015.
Federal prosecutors are trying Lymon on guns and drug trafficking allegations. Attorney General Hector Balderas has said his office is handling any state charges that will be filed in connection to the shooting, though no state charges have been filed.
At a time when police videos are making news locally and nationally because the footage can hurt or exonerate police officers, the Webster shooting video illustrates that there’s no standard for when police videos are made public in New Mexico.
There’s a mix of police departments and sheriff’s offices that use on-body and dashboard camera videos and others that don’t, and police departments have been inconsistent with when they will and won’t release footage to the public.
Albuquerque police have a policy that governs when officers should use the cameras to make recordings, but the department doesn’t have a policy that describes when camera footage will be made public.
Police videos have repeatedly made headlines in Albuquerque. The police department was one of the first major cities to equip most of its officers with on-body cameras.
Footage made when two Albuquerque police officers shot and killed a homeless man was released days after the shooting, resulting in protests in the streets and ultimately becoming a crucial piece of evidence that led to the two officers being charged with murder. Their trial ended in a deadlocked jury, 9-3 for acquittal. There has been no decision on a retrial.
In shooting cases since then, the city has waited more than a year to release footage of police shootings. Video of a police lieutenant shooting and seriously injuring a fellow undercover officer wasn’t released for about a year and a half, and after the city settled a lawsuit brought by the injured officer.
In the case of the Webster shooting, Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Martinez said in an email Tuesday that Chief U.S. District Judge Christina Armijo has issued an oral order that the audio and video evidence remain sealed until after possible state charges against Lymon are completed. Last year, shortly after the shooting, police denied a formal records request from the Journal for the footage, saying the video was exempt from public records laws because of a law enforcement exemption to public records laws.
“We don’t have a uniform policy” on when police videos are released, said Susan Boe, the executive director of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government.
Boe said it’s FOG’s position that police videos do not become exempt from public records laws just because prosecutors are reviewing the videos as evidence for possible criminal charges. She said that would allow public agencies to shield themselves from public disclosure by sending videos to prosecutors for a review.
The Webster shooting video was played in court Monday and Tuesday during Lymon’s trial on a federal firearms charge. Prosecutors played Webster’s lapel camera footage, a video of Lymon recorded in an interview room at APD’s main station, and police helicopter surveillance footage recorded the night of the shooting.
The monitors showing the video footage were presented to the judge and attorneys involved in the case. Though court observers could hear audio from the video, but couldn’t see the footage clearly.