Demands grow for video of shooting
Sheriff’s Office refuses to release bodycam footage in mall incident
About two hours after one of his deputies shot and killed 22-year-old Salaythis Melvin in the Florida Mall’s parking lot Friday, Orange County Sheriff John Mina confirmed that a bodyworn camera had recorded the incident and told reporters had he had already reviewed it.
The Sheriff’s Office has since refused to make the footage public, even after it was revealed that Melvin, who deputies say had a hand on a gun in his waistband as he fled, had been shot in the back. The agency won’t show it to Melvin’s parents, either, said their attorney, Bradley Laurent.
“The family doesn’t really know what happened,” Laurent said. “It’s our position the family should have a right to see that footage, to see the last moments of their loved one. The mother has a right to see the last moments of her son.”
Law enforcement leaders, including Mina, have touted bodyworn cameras as evidence of their commitment to transparency and a tool for holding officers and members of the public alike accountable. But local agencies differ widely in how quickly they release the footage.
The Sheriff’s Office rejected a public record request for the video from the Orlando Sentinel, citing an active investigation of the shooting by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. OCSO also declined an interview request for Mina, citing “potential litigation” because an attorney for the Sentinel had emailed an agency lawyer seeking reconsideration of the video’s release.
Experts say OCSO’s rationale for withholding the video — often used by other local agencies, including the Orlando Police Department — is flimsy under Florida’s broad public records law and ill-advised in the current climate of distrust between police agencies and the communities they serve.
“At a time when law enforcement is being scrutinized, the last thing they want to do is hide information,” said Pamela Marsh, president of the First Amendment Foundation. “When you hide information, you lose trust.”
Meanwhile, a petition demanding the video be made public has already garnered more than 2,000 signatures, and local activists have taken to the streets to echo that message.
Miles Mulrain, founder of the nonprofit Let Your Voice Be Heard and one of the most visible leaders of recent Central Florida protests against brutality, said OCSO’s refusal to release the footage is part of a pattern of painting those injured or killed by police as guilty.
“They put out what they want to send a message … that this person should deserve this kind of treatment,” Mulrain said.
Questions remain
Though the Sheriff’s Office has released few details, court records indicate Melvin’s death came as deputies were seeking to apprehend another man, 19-year-old Vanshawn M. Sands.
On July 7, Sands had been at a house on Powers Ridge Court when two other men, who authorities say were associated with a rival gang, drove up and started shooting. Sands returned fire, resulting in a shootout that left one of the attackers dead, records say.
Because Sands has a record and admitted to having had the gun with him throughout that day, a detective got a warrant to arrest him on a charge of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
According to Mina, when deputies tried to make the arrest Friday outside the Florida Mall Dick’s Sporting Goods, they confronted a group of four people that included Melvin, who took off running.
In an affidavit, Deputy Marcus Bullock wrote that Melvin had his right hand on a handgun that was in his waistband when Agent James Montiel exited an unmarked vehicle. Melvin ran away from the agent, who chased him.
That’s when Melvin “turned his head and started to face [Montiel] while still holding his firearm,” Bullock’s report said, prompting Montiel to think Melvin was going to pull his gun. Montiel shot Melvin, who died the next day at Orlando Regional Medical Center.
In addition to withholding the video, the Sheriff’s Office has declined to answer other questions: Who were the other people with Melvin? Was Montiel in uniform? The agency posted on Twitter a photo of the gun deputies say Melvin was carrying, but wouldn’t say if it was loaded. Laurent said he and Melvin’s family met with OCSO leaders Monday but emerged with more questions.
“That’s what these body cameras are for; there’s nothing left for people to speculate on, you get to see what happened,” Laurent said. “If he was doing something wrong, we should see it in the video. But they’re not letting us see the video. Why won’t you let us see the video?”
Releasing the footage would give Melvin’s loved ones some answers, said Mulrain, who has organized protests since Friday on the family’s behalf.
“The only story they have about how their loved one passed is that the police chased and shot him,” he said.
Transparency vs. discretion
Florida’s public records law — considered among the most broad in the country — has specific exemptions for body camera footage filmed under certain circumstances, but none that justify routinely withholding video of police shootings, experts said.
Body camera footage is considered confidential when it’s recorded inside someone’s house; a health care, mental health care or social services facility; or a place that a reasonable person would expect to be private.
There’s also an exemption for criminal investigative information. But that applies only if the case is active, which means the police agency anticipates an arrest or prosecution is forthcoming, said Samuel Morley, general counsel for the Florida Press Association.
“The sheriff will have a good deal of discretion in determining if the investigation is considered ongoing and active,” Morley said in an email. “That said, the sheriff can’t invoke it without any basis.”
In Melvin’s case, the active investigation would be the one being conducted by the FDLE, which the Sheriff’s Office and other local agencies task with reviewing police shootings. The agency forwards its findings to a local prosecuting office, which determines if officers broke any laws.
FDLE spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said each police agency decides when to release public records related to a shooting by its officers. But sometimes FDLE does ask agencies “not [to] release certain evidence … until after initial interviews have been conducted.”
“When specific information is released prior to the initial round of interviews, it can change perceptions of witnesses and make it more difficult for agents to determine the facts of what happened,” she said.
Marsh noted other Florida sheriffs release body camera footage immediately after police shootings. Mina, she said, has the discretion to do so.
“[B]ody cameras were adopted in Florida to improve transparency, to improve accountability in interactions between law enforcement and citizens,” she said. “… It was intended to become a public record.”
The Volusia County Sheriff’s Office, which also has FDLE review all shootings by deputies, routinely releases video within a day of them occurring.
“In a police shooting, how is it going to impede investigation when you’re seeing everything that’s there — what you see in the body cam video?” Sheriff Mike Chitwood, who wasn’t available for an interview this week, told News4Jax in June. “Put it out there, even if it’s bad.”
‘What are you hiding?’
Melvin’s killing came after local activists had for months been staging regular protests against police brutality, which crested after the Minneapolis killing of George Floyd during an arrest in May sparked nationwide unrest and drew thousands to demonstrate in downtown Orlando.
It also comes as voting is underway in a Democratic primary that pits Mina against four rivals, two — Andrew Darling and Darryl Sheppard — running as reform candidates calling for fundamental changes to policing.
Darling, an attorney and former assistant public defender, said he would make sure the family had the opportunity to see the full video, then release most of it to the public. “Up until the deputy makes the decision [to shoot], all of that should be up to the public to see,” Darling said.
Sheppard, an entrepreneur, said it doesn’t make sense that the video would be withheld due to the FDLE probe.
“That video is not going to change in six months, but the deep distrust of law enforcement and the Sheriff’s Office will grow,” Sheppard said. “What are you hiding? … The citizens should be allowed to see this video immediately.”
The two candidates with law enforcement backgrounds, Jose “Joe” Lopez and Eric McIntyre, were not as quick to promise they’d release video right away under the circumstances.
López, a former Florida Highway Patrol chief, said he would meet with FDLE and the State Attorney’s Office to get an “OK to having the immediate family members review the video, so they can have some type of closure” and release it publicly if those agencies don’t object. McIntyre, currently at the Eatonville Police Department, said he would likely defer to FDLE. He said he thinks Melvin’s family should see the video, but feared releasing it could “incite a riot.” He also said of Melvin, “a person with a gun should not be running.”
Jacinta Gau, a University of Central Florida criminal justice professor, argues activists put too much importance on body camera footage, which tends to show only “a slice of what’s happening in a very chaotic situation.”
“The argument that you need to release body camera footage or you’re hiding something to me is not terribly convincing and suggests to me that people are putting perhaps too much faith in body camera footage,” Gau said. “This footage is quite frequently not all that great, especially when you have only one camera showing what happened.”
Family plans suit
Laurent also represented the mother of 21-year-old Jah’Sean Hodge, who was killed by St. Cloud Police Department officers in May. Police said Hodge had fled after stabbing his 9-year-old niece, but some family members claimed he had defended the girl from a different attacker. Facing pressure from the community, SCPD released footage of the shooting about two months later, even though the FDLE probe wasn’t done, as well as evidence it said proved Hodge was the culprit in the stabbing.
“In light of national attention on law enforcement, I believe it is more important than ever to communicate directly with the public in serious matters involving my police officers and the community they serve,” Chief Pete Gauntlett said in a statement at the time.
While Laurent said the footage — which showed Hodge, who was unarmed, charging at an officer just prior to the shooting — could have been released sooner, he commended the agency for its transparency.
“There are a lot of other jurisdictions that do provide body camera footage soon after an officer is involved in a shooting, but here in Orlando they’re not doing that,” Laurent said. “This would be a good opportunity for [Mina] to show the community that he does want to promote change.”
Laurent said he’s appalled by how Melvin’s family has been treated since his killing. They weren’t notified until about 10:30 p.m., he said, and weren’t able to visit him in the hospital before he died.
He said he’s planning a wrongful death lawsuit.
“We do want to get justice for the family,” Laurent said. “We’re not going to go on the Sheriff’s Office’s timeframe, because when they tell you they’re conducting an investigation, they’ll tell you that for years.”