Cleveland to keep cops charged with crimes off camera

Cleveland officials CLEVELAND — are taking the stance that the public does not have the right to see un-redacted video and images of police officers who are formally charged with committing crimes.

City law director Barbara Langhenry said in an email exchange with cleveland. com that the city will use an exemption in the public records law in order to blur the faces of police officers in police body camera videos, even when those officers are off-duty and are formally charged with committing crimes.

Cleveland.com requested video on Feb. 16 of police officer Angelia Gaston, who is charged with obstructing justice after she drove away from a fellow police officer who was trying to tow her car because of some $1,500 in parking tickets Gaston had accrued.

The city provided the video with Gaston’s face blurred. In contrast, videos of other criminals charged with crimes do not under go similar editing.

Langhenry’s office also uses the exemption to refuse the release mug shots when officers are booked into the city jail on criminal charges.

Langhenry did not respond to multiple messages seeking comment and clarification. City spokesman Dan Williams said in an email that Langhenry was consulting with attorneys at the law firm BakerHostetler and would provide an explanation.

Williams later responded on Langhenry’s behalf, saying that the city is going to stand by their “policy.”

The exemption the city cites is a provision in the Ohio Sunshine Laws that says photos of officers who are assigned to plain clothes or undercover work are protected from having their photos publicly released.

Langhenry said in an email that Safety Director Michael McGrath has said that “all Cleveland Police Officers may at any time be assigned undercover or plain clothes positions or assignments.”

The exemption would cover all officers, even ones that have never had an undercover assignment.

A public records attorney and an open government advocate both called the city’s reasoning “absurd.”

In addition to Gaston’s case, the city has used the exemptions recently to deny mug shot requests for an officer accused of soliciting a prostitute, one charged with possessing cocaine and another with drunken driving.

In some of the denials, the city law department also included the caveat that the mugshots “can only be released with the prior written approval of the applicable peace officer.” Nothing in the Ohio law says anything about asking a police officer’s permission to use his or her photo.

Yet the city routinely publishes photos of police officers on their Facebook pages, Twitter account and official website. The website currently shows a photo of the recent graduation of 42 police cadets, all of whom could theoretically someday be involved in undercover police work.

“I assume that they will never, ever again release photos of officers even if they’re getting national awards, or citations or other honors because every officer in Cleveland can’t have their photos out there,” said Dennis Hetzel, the executive director of the Ohio News Media Association. “It’s a crazy end-run. Where does it end? Unfortunately, it’s the kind of behavior we’ve come to expect from officials in Cuyahoga County.”

Other police agencies, including the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department, the Ohio Highway Patrol, Parma police and others have routinely released mug shots of police officers or un-redacted body camera or dashboard camera videos of officers charged with crimes, including veteran Cleveland police officer Tommie Griffin, who was charged in Parma with rape and ultimately committed suicide during a SWAT standoff.

Jail booking photos in Ohio are considered to public records immediately available to the public.

Cleveland attorney Patrick Kabat, who led a First Amendment clinic at Case Western Reserve University that is now at Cleveland State University, said the city would be able to use the exemption if the specific officer in question had an undercover assignment at the time someone requested a mugshot or body camera video for that specific officer.

“It doesn’t allow them to treat subjects of requests as a Schrodinger’s’ Cat, that can sort of materialize into exempt status because they might do something down the road,” Kabat said. “That would create a virtually limitless exemption immunizing police officers who someday might be transmuted under different circumstances into exemption from otherwise clearly applicable principles to public access.”

Kabat also pointed out that the officers who have been formally charged have already appeared in open court rooms for their arraignments and pretrial hearings. The public is free to take photos inside Ohio courtrooms, and in many cases, media members have photographed or taken video of the officer’s hearings.

“We know from appearances in court who this person is,” Kabat said.