Lawsuit Challenges Essex County Prosecutor's Refusal to Disclose Police Videos and Name of Newark Officer Who Fatally Shot Fleeing Motorist - NJ OPRA Blog
Last week, CJ Griffin filed an OPRA lawsuit on behalf of Richard Rivera against the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office (ECPO) relating to its refusal to disclose the name of a Newark police officer who shot at a fleeing vehicle during a pursuit in January 2019, killing the driver and injuring the passenger. The lawsuit also seeks access to footage from police body-worn cameras and dash cameras.
ECPO denied the request because it is “concerned” that the officer may refuse to testify before the grand jury if his or her name is publicly disclosed. Mr. Rivera’s lawsuit argues that this is not a lawful basis for denying access to the information and videos and that transparency is important when police-involved shootings occur.
In 2017, we won an appeal in the New Jersey Supreme Court on a similar issue in North Jersey Media Group v. Township of Lyndhurst, 229 N.J. 541 (2017). In Lyndhurst, the Supreme Court ruled that the public was entitled to learn the identities of the police officers involved in fatal shootings and see videos of those incidents “shortly after the incident,” after investigators “have interviewed the principal witnesses who observed the shooting and are willing to speak to law enforcement.” The Court stated that disclosure should ordinarily occur “within days of an incident, well before a grand jury presentation or possible trial.” In coming to such conclusions, the Court stated that the public has a significant interest in knowing the details about police-involved shootings and that non-disclosure of such information can undermine confidence in law enforcement.
As we previously wrote, in February 2018, the Attorney General issued Law Enforcement Directive 2018-1 to codify the Supreme Court’s decision. The Directive states that videos of police-involved shootings should be released when the “initial investigation” is “substantially complete,” which means that the principal witnesses have been interviewed and the evidence has been gathered. This should “typically will occur within 20 days of the incident itself.” Only in extraordinary circumstances could a video be withheld longer than 20 days.
In this case, the police-involved shooting occurred on January 28, 2019 and ECPO still refuses to release the officer’s identity or the police videos more than three months later.
NJ Advance Media has written an article about the lawsuit, which provides more details about the underlying shooting incident. A hearing date has not yet been set by the court.