Release the video of Denver police killing William DeBose
Denver District Attorney Beth McCann should release videos from Denver police-worn body cameras and any potential nearby surveillance footage from the night police shot and killed 21year-old William DeBose.
Police say that on May 1, DeBose ran away from his vehicle after police pulled him over for speeding in west Denver. According to the police report, DeBose fled on foot, turned and pointed a gun at a police officer who shot DeBose. However, DeBose’s wife, who was in the car with him before he was shot, has said that is not what happened.
She says her husband told her he was afraid of the police before getting out of the car and running away. Police have said a gun was found nearby.
McCann’s office said on Tuesday that the district attorney had received a report from the coroner and would release the video later this week after making a decision and talking with DeBose’s family. We are glad the video will be released soon, but to be clear we don’t think these types of videos should be held until prosecutors or, ideally a grand jury, decide whether or not charges should be brought.
Colorado lawmakers, nearly unanimously, determined last week that the public has a right to see police body-camera videos in the days after police kill or injure someone. Polis is expected to sign a bill into law any day now that will require that body-worn camera footage be released within 21 days of any incident and 45 days if there is concern that releasing the video could interfere with an ongoing investigation. It has now been 47 days and DeBose’s family was only shown the video last week.
We are willing to concede that the video might be inconclusive — body-camera footage can be dark and grainy and very shaky. We are reminded of the body-worn camera footage from Oct. 20 when an Aurora police officer shot and killed a man outside an apartment complex. In the video, several people run toward a police officer and scream warnings that a man has a gun. The officer fires several times at what appears on the video to be a dark shadow across a parking lot. The video certainly gives the context that the officer had reason to suspect that the shadowy man had a gun and was a threat, but the video makes it impossible to determine if the man actually had a gun. Videos should not be mistaken to show exactly what officers see.
But sometimes the videos are conclusive — like in Colorado Springs where it’s clear from the video that officers never saw a gun that was hidden in the shorts of De’Von Bailey. They shot Bailey in the back as he fled. And sometimes, the videos show an officer doing everything exactly right in a volatile situation and still dying at the hands of an armed suspect — like when Deputy Zach
Parrish was killed in 2017.
Yes, everyone should get a fair trial and the officers involved in this shooting shouldn’t be tried in the media. But these are extraordinary times and releasing this video is in the public’s best interest.
The days where Americans gave cops the benefit of the doubt are over.
Millions of people have watched a video of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on the neck of George Floyd for almost nine minutes. Floyd, who is black, died, and Chauvin, who is white, has been charged with murder.
Then a flood of videos, some old and some new, capturing officers behaving badly toward men and women of color helped refute any remaining claim that Floyd’s treatment was purely an anomaly.
A police officer in Atlanta shot and killed Rayshard Brooks, 27, on June 12. Body cameras and dashcam videos show that Brooks complied with police for more than half an hour, getting patted down and taking a sobriety test, before the police attempt to arrest him. Brooks resists arrest and gets into a physical altercation with the two police officers. He takes one of the officer’s Tasers, and as he runs away, points the Taser at an officer who is chasing after him. The officer drops his Taser, pulls his gun and shoots Brooks. Resisting arrest, stealing an officer’s Taser and assaulting an officer are all felony offenses. Brooks certainly needed to be arrested. But the videos do not support the use of deadly force. If the officers felt they could not catch Brooks on foot, killing him is not a secondary option. As we’ve been told by police departments for years, Tasers are not deadly weapons.
This week, Americans have watched officers in L.A. hold former “Saturday Night
Live” star Jay Pharoah at gunpoint and demand he get on the ground. Pharoah, who was out exercising at the time, says in a powerful video that he was terrified for his life and officers simply told him that he matched the description of a black suspect in gray sweatpants. An officer knelt on his neck. Pharoah said the event occurred a week before the footage of Ahmaud Arbery being shot and killed while on a jog in Georgia was released.
“Black lives always matter. My life matters. I am here to tell my story but I could have easily been an Ahmaud Arbery or a George Floyd. And I’m not and I can tell my story,” Pharoah said before urging young black men to educate themselves about their rights and to be prepared in case police officers attempt to “flip anything.”
Given this backdrop of events — there have been more videos and incidents capturing racism in recent weeks than we can mention here — we can understand why a month and a half after DeBose was killed, protesters have started demanding the video evidence in the investigation be released.
Members of The Denver Post’s editorial board are Megan Schrader, editor of the editorial pages; Lee Ann Colacioppo, editor; Justin Mock, CFO; Bill Reynolds, general manager/ senior vp circulation and production; Bob Kinney, vice president of information technology; and TJ Hutchinson, systems editor.