FLOYD VIDEOS SOUGHT; U.S. REJECTS CHINESE CLAIMS IN SEA

MINNEAPOLIS — A coalition of news media outlets is seeking public access to body camera video recorded by former officers charged in the death of George Floyd, while attorneys for the officers are asking that a gag order in the case be lifted, according to court documents filed Monday.

Attorneys for the coalition of media organizations, including The Associated Press, are asking Judge Peter Cahill to immediately make the body camera videos of Thomas Lane and J. Kueng available for copying. Those videos were filed with the court last week by Lane’s attorney, but only transcripts of the audio have been made public.

Court staff told news media that the footage would be made available at an unspecified date for viewing only and that it could not be copied or recorded. Media attorney Leita Walker objected to the in-person, byappointment viewing only, saying it violates the common law, rules of public access to records and the First Amendment.

Walker said news media outlets want the footage immediately available for copying “so that it may be widely viewed not just by those who have the time and wherewithal to visit the courthouse during a global pandemic but by all members of the public concerned about the administration of justice in one of the most important, and most-watched, cases this state — perhaps this country — has ever seen.”

Floyd, a Black man who was handcuffed, died May 25 after Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes as Floyd said he couldn’t breathe. Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter. Tou Thao, Lane and Kueng are charged with aiding and abetting both second-degree murder and manslaughter. All four officers were fired.

The body-camera videos and transcripts were filed last week by Lane’s attorney, Earl Gray, as part of a motion to have Lane’s case dismissed. Gray said at the time that he wanted the videos to be made public— prompting Cahill to issue a gag order the next day that barred attorneys and parties from discussing the case. In a court filing Monday, Gray said he wants the gag order lifted, arguing his comments didn’t warrant the restrictive order.

Attorneys for Chauvin, Thao and Kueng also said in filings that the gag order should be lifted. Chauvin’s attorney, Eric Nelson, said that in the last several weeks Chauvin has been called a murderer and some public officials have referred to the case as a “murder.”

Nelson argued that after more than six weeks of one side of the story, prosecutors are the only ones who have benefited from pretrial publicity.