OPINION: New London loses appeal of order to release police body cam videos
Nov. 1—The decision by New London's power brokers to go to Superior Court to challenge a decision by the state Freedom of Information Commission ordering the release of New London police body camera videos always struck me as strange.
After all, the body cams were mandated by Connecticut law, in the wake of the explosion of national anger over the killing of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white police officer, in broad daylight on a public street in Minneapolis.
You would think that public officials in a small diverse city like New London would go out of their way to comply and even showcase their adherence to the state's new police accountability law and body cam requirements.
I would say the exact opposite is true, as I continue to wait, because of some bungling and some deliberate obstruction, to see police body cam videos from New Year's Eve 2021, which I asked for in a Freedom of Information request in January 2022.
Yes, it's been one year and nine months, and the clock is still ticking.
I will grant them that it was indeed a broad request, for videos from the entire New Year's Eve shift. I thought the public deserved a look at how the new cameras work, and a busy holiday evening seemed like it would be good representation.
The request, handled by Law Director Jeffrey Londregan, turned into a disagreement over the costs of redacting or removing images, like those of minor children, from the videos. The initial bill I got was $628.
The staff at the Freedom of Information Commission assured me the city was not permitted under state law to charge for the redacting, and I filed a complaint with the commission over the city's refusal to turn over the videos without payment.
Meanwhile, while some police departments, like Stonington, agreed to oblige body cam video requests without complaint or charging the public, some others lobbied in Hartford for a change in the law to allow for some processing fees.
No change in the law passed the legislature in the last session, but the city of New London decided to pursue its own remedy.
When the FOI commission ruled against New London in my case, after a hearing and testimony, and ordered the release of the New Year's Eve videos without charge, the city refused to give them over and promptly filed an appeal in Superior Court.
I am not sure who made the decision to engage in a long and expensive court fight to make public access to the videos expensive. I am sure the City Council didn't vote on it.
The law director must have gotten a green light for this expense from someone. Presumably Mayor Michael Passero agreed. No one stopped the city's lawsuit after I first reported on it.
Everyone had to lawyer up for this new battle in Superior Court, including The Day.
Fortunately for me, and the public, the city's lawyering was especially atrocious. It turns out the city served the lawsuit papers on the attorney general and not the FOI commission.
Before the judge dismissed the case, lawyers for the commission scoffed in arguments at the city's blaming the improper service on state marshals, saying the lawyers should have looked at the paperwork returned to them.
I'm still waiting for the videos. The law director gave me a disc with five short videos, saying that was all that was recorded that night.
When I complained that seemed impossible, the mayor did some checking and said there are more videos and police need time to process them. I'm waiting.
I know the mayor is busy cruising to an easy win at the polls next week, riding a pretty good wave of downtown gentrification. But if you see him, ask why the city is paying lawyers to keep body cam videos from the public, instead of technicians who could make them available promptly, in accordance with Connecticut's new police accountability laws.
This is the opinion of David Collins.