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Attorney
Sued For Requesting Dash Cam Videos

05 Jan 2012 17:20 pm

Attorney Sued For Requesting Dash Cam Videos

By: RSDavis

Quote

SEATTLE -- A Seattle attorney, who asked for copies of police
dash cam videos is getting sued by the city of Seattle.
Â
The
attorney represents some citizens who claim they were abused by Seattle Police
officers.
Â
Acting as a citizen, lawyer James Egan filed a public
disclosure request to get 36 dash cam showing possible violations by Seattle
Police.
Â
Many dash cam videos have surfaced in the past, but they
were leaked to the media, not released by the city.
Â
The answer
to Egan's request was no. And after he appealed, Wednesday he learned he has
been sued by the city.
Â
"I was floored that I got this lawsuit,"
said Egan. Â "Its the city caught between a rock and a hard place."

Â
The city attorney wants a court to decide. Â He says the
Washington privacy act says the videos can't be made public until final
disposition of related litigation.
Â
In other words not until the
officers can no longer be sued for what they did in the video and that's three
years under the statute of limitations.

http://www.king5.com/news/Seattle-suing-attorney-over-dash-cam-videos-136707268.html

05 Jan 2012 17:29 pm

Attorney Sued For Requesting Dash Cam Videos

By: DJ Davis

Can someone with more legal knowledge than I explain the
grounds of this suit? A government suing a citizen for requesting information
seems ridiculous on its face. As usual, the online version of tv news lacks many
details.

05 Jan 2012 18:07 pm

Attorney Sued For Requesting Dash Cam Videos

By: RSDavis

DJ Davis wrote

Can someone with more legal knowledge than I explain the
grounds of this suit? A government suing a citizen for requesting information
seems ridiculous on its face. As usual, the online version of tv news lacks many
details.

I'm curious about that, myself.

05 Jan 2012 18:12 pm

Attorney Sued For Requesting Dash Cam Videos

By: Stel

RSDavis wrote

DJ Davis wrote

Can someone with more legal knowledge than I explain the
grounds of this suit? A government suing a citizen for requesting information
seems ridiculous on its face. As usual, the online version of tv news lacks many
details.

I'm curious about that,
myself.

It is a matter of state law, so you'd
need a Washington state attorney to explain it. In Missouri, the request would
be covered by our open records law.

05 Jan 2012 23:01 pm

Attorney Sued For Requesting Dash Cam Videos

By: genesfan

DJ Davis wrote

Can someone with more legal knowledge than I explain the
grounds of this suit? A government suing a citizen for requesting information
seems ridiculous on its face. As usual, the online version of tv news lacks many
details.

Best guess here is that the state is
asking the court for a declaratory judgment to the effect that the tapes need
not be released, and they have joined the requesting attorney as a party in
interest.

A suit for damages against the lawyer individually wouldn't
make any sense, I can't come up with any plausible theories for it.

06 Jan 2012 00:27 am

Attorney Sued For Requesting Dash Cam Videos

By: RSDavis

Seattle Sues Attorney For Requesting Police Dash-Cam
Footage

Posted on January 5, 2012, 7:00PM | Lucy Steigerwald

Seattle has a brilliant solution to their many police problems â€”
refuse to release police dash-cam footage, then sue [pdf] the person requesting
said footage.

Reports KOMOnews.com:

Quote

KOMO News sued the city of Seattle after public information
requests for police dash-cam video were not fulfilled. The suit alleges
violation of the public records law.

But criminal defense attorney James
Egan never expected the city would preemptively sue him just for asking for
police dash cam video.

"Shocked. I am shocked," he said. "What the
police department is saying is if you make a request for public documents,
ultimately you will be sued."

The situation involves two cases Egan
handled pro bono. He believed the videos in each case show officer misconduct.
Egan wanted to know if those officers had other questionable arrests, so he
asked for 36 additional dash-cam videos.

But the city refused, citing
privacy laws. Egan appealed, and now the city is suing him.

"This is
ridiculous. It would be comical if it weren't alarming," he said.

Egan
believes the city is retaliating for making these other videos public.

"I kind of expect for something like this that they really do have
something to hide," said Egan.

But Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes,
who filed the lawsuit, says the city is caught between two conflicting laws.

"There's a plain conflict in the laws between the Public Records Act
(and) the Privacy Act. The city will pay dearly if it makes the wrong choice,"
said Holmes.

When asked whether an attempt was made to cover up the 36
requested videos, Holmes said, "None whatsoever."

The most beautifully convenient part? Says ABAjournal.com, with emphasis added:

Quote

Although Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes says the city will
abide by the courtâ€™s decision, Egan told King 5 TV that the Washington privacy act prevents the footage
from being made public until the final disposition of related litigation. That
is, until the officers can no longer be sued for what they did in the
video.

"The idea that you can't get a video until three years
later is self protectionism,â€ Egan said, according to the stationâ€™s report.
â€œThey don't want the public to know the skeletons in their
closets."

And there are many skeletons in the
Seattle PD's closet, not just the recent news that a member of their force was
arrested for buying crack, then mysteriously shot to death. There's also the
fact that the Department of Justice recently finished a year-long investigation
of the SPD, and they weren't happy with what they found. For example,
the DOJ dubbed one in five uses of force by the police to be
"unconstitutional." They also said that there was no official policy of
discrimination, but minorities did suffer disproportionately and there was
"potential" for discrimination in certain encounters.

In order to sooth
the DOJ, the PD has made some changes which will supposedly enhance
accountability, one is making sure squads report to a single sargent, instead of a rotating team of supervisors. Let's
hope that supervisor is keen on policing his or her own people. Do you know what
might help even more with that task? Dash-cams. Except they didn't do any good
when one of the Seattle PD shot woodcarver John T. Williams to death in 2010.
But if what footage does exist [video] had not been
released, chances are prosecutors wouldn't have even debated bringing charges against officer Ian Birk
at all.

Reason.tv on "The Government's
War on Cameras":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY0MUARqisM&feature=player_embedded

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