ACLU plans lawsuits over records in police killing in W.Va.
Weirton, state police get intent notices
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia said Wednesday that it has filed intent to sue notices with the city of Weirton and the West Virginia State Police after both denied its Freedom of Information Act request for records related to the police killing of a Pittsburgh man.
Weirton city attorney Cy Hill wrote last month in its response to the request that the records were exempt from disclosure because state police still were investigating the shooting May 6 of Ronald “R.J.” Williams. On Wednesday, he repeated that assertion, saying in an email, “The city did not release certain documents to the ACLU because the State Police investigation is still open. Simple as that.”
During a news conference Tuesday, Weirton City Manager Travis Blosser also said the city had to deny the FOIA request because the state police investigation “is still in their hands.”
“So until [the state police decide] to close the investigation officially, we have no ability to release those documents because they are in their control,” he told reporters, according to a tape of the news conference by WTOV-TV. Also during the news conference, Police Chief Rob Alexander said state police “are still chasing down leads from this incident.”
The ACLU said it was confused by those statements. At a news conference June 8, Hancock County, W.Va., Prosecutor Jim Davis said state police had completed their investigation and found the shooting to be justified because Mr. Williams aimed a handgun at officers called to his ex-girlfriend’s home early May 6.
“After the press conference, we figured everything [related to the shooting] was closed and the three officers were going back to work,” Jeff Martin, the interim director of the West Virginia ACLU, said Wednesday. “This whole things stinks of just not being transparent with the community.”
Mr. Martin hopes by filing intent to sue notices that state police and the city will produce the documents to avoid litigation.
The state police response to the ACLU’s request for documents also denied it access, but not because of an ongoing investigation.
Instead, state police Capt. M.R. Crowder, deputy chief of field services, cited a section of state law that gives an exemption to disclosure of records of “law enforcement agencies that deal with the detection and investigation of crime and the internal records and notations of such law enforcement agencies which are maintained for internal use in matters relating to law enforcement.”
Capt. Crowder could not be reached Wednesday.
The ACLU said in July that it decided to look into the shooting death of Mr. Williams because it was time, given the national debate over similar shootings elsewhere.
Now, in addition to documents about the shooting itself, Mr. Martin said the ACLU will make a request for documents related to the termination of the first officer who arrived on the scene but did not shoot Mr. Williams.
The Post-Gazette on Sunday outlined the details of the termination. The city on Tuesday said the former officer, Stephen Mader, was fired for two earlier incidents, not for deciding against shooting Mr. Williams. But documents the city gave Mr. Mader show the overwhelming emphasis of the claims against him related to failing to shoot Mr. Williams.
The city’s response Tuesday “seems to me that they’re just trying to justify their actions after they’ve been called out on some potentially bad behavior,” Mr. Martin said of the ACLU’s decision to also request documents related to Mr. Mader’s termination.