Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos is siding with a man who sued the Burlington Police Department over the hundreds of dollars it wanted to charge him to view an officer’s body camera footage.
The state’s primary public records custodian filed an amicus brief with the Vermont Supreme Court last week asserting that public records should be free for members of the public to inspect. A lower court ruling in favor of the police department “serves to cloud the transparencies in Vermont government” well beyond police video, Condos wrote.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont sued the department last year on behalf of Reed Doyle, a Burlington man who claimed to have witnessed a Queen City officer use excessive force against young teens in Roosevelt Park in 2017. Doyle sought a court order requiring the department to allow him to view body camera footage from the incident without charge.
But Washington Superior Court Judge Mary Miles Teachout ruled in favor of the police department last August. Teachout determined that Vermont law, which allows agencies to recoup costs of complying with a request for copies of a public record, also applies when requesters seek only to inspect the record, as Doyle did.
The ACLU appealed the ruling.
In his amicus brief, Condos contends the lower court ruling will “embolden” public agencies to levy even more charges for those who want to inspect records — including media outlets.
“Pricing out the press,” he wrote, will “render transactions of government more invisible, further diminishing accountability.”
The Vermont Journalism Trust, Vermont Press Association and the New England First Amendment Coalition will be filing briefs in support of Doyle later this week, the ACLU said in a Tuesday press release.
The Burlington Police Department has said that redacting the body cam footage would require up to 10 hours of work, and that charging fees for the work is necessary to limit burdensome records requests. The department estimated Doyle would be on the hook for $220 to $370, a chunk of which he’d have to pay in advance.
Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo told Seven Days that his department followed the ACLU’s model policy for redacting body camera footage, which states that the department should retain an unedited version of the video. In other words, the redacted version is a copy of the record, he said, and should therefore be treated as such under public record law.
“The decision made by Judge Teachout affirmed that a person cannot inspect video footage without the government first copying and redacting it, as required by Vermont law to respect the privacy of children and minors,” del Pozo said, “and that the law further allows the cost of producing such a copy to be recovered by the government on behalf of its taxpayers.”
Teachout noted in her earlier decision that the Secretary of State had not interpreted state records law as it relates to the case.
Condos has now made clear where his office stands.
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Cops are hiding behind a paywall . . .!!!?? Who do they think they are?? Google? Apple? Microsoft? Comcast?
Police records are public property and paid for with our tax money. This video is digital, not film . . .fer chrissakes! A few keystrokes and it’s done. Maybe since there are cameras everywhere and we live in a police/surveillance state WE should get paid.
What’s next . . ? Privatization of the Police Force? I know some on the unhinged Trump Right would love that, even some of the Wall Street Democrats would love it ,too, since both parties are just two arms on the same MIC/Wall Street puppet.
Why does the the police force need to redact the footage? Is there something there that implies the officer was using excessive force?
These are public records and should be able to be viewed in their entirety not edited to suit a point of view.
I’m assuming the police want to redact the kids’ faces since they’re juveniles. The problem with such redaction in past cases is that a broad brush deletes most of the action sought to be seen. This is not surprising in the police state that has been in existence since Jim Crow and probably earlier. So-called “modern” Brandon del Pozo is showing his roots with this ridiculous policy, a New York police state that regularly trod on the rights of people of color and young men minding their own business.
Hoorah for Jim Condos, pretty much the only voice in State Government that is consistent in advocating for transparency.
Here’s a suggestion for Seven Days: Please try to include a link to the documents that are being reported. In this case it would be Washington Civil Division decision, ACLU’s Amicus Brief and Condos’ opinion at a minimum. There is also the initial complaint and the Briefs of both parties in the SCOV.
What are the Burlington police trying to hide? The last I knew all records were supposed to be public! They will think up any excuse to make money off of it, they are as crooked as the politicians…..
Court records are public information as well but when you want a court transcript you pay through the nose and have to get it from a company in NYC.
If the kids parents were to press charges, the video can be subpoena’d as evidence & should absolutely be without charge at that point.