Jon Ostendorff

ASHEVILLE – The Citizen-Times is asking a judge to order police to make public dozens of video recordings of political gatherings and demonstrations, according to a lawsuit filed Monday.

The newspaper, in the lawsuit, says keeping the recordings secret will have a "chilling effect" on the First Amendment right of the public to demonstrate.

The lawsuit alleges the videos — made since 1980 — are covered by North Carolina's public records law. Police are not using the records as part of ongoing criminal investigations, according to the lawsuit.

Police have gathered no actionable criminal evidence from recording public gatherings, a city spokeswoman has said. Police have about 60 recordings.

They range from the Mountain Moral Mondays rally in August to a gun rights rally in November to environmental protests last year and eight Occupy Asheville events.

Police have also recorded tea party tax rallies, immigration protests, street preachers at Bele Chere anti-war rallies and abortion protests. The earliest recordings are from KKK rallies in the 1980s.

"We feel it's the public's legal right to have access to these video archives," said Dave Neill, president and publisher of the Asheville Citizen-Times. "The newspaper is committed to achieving this by taking appropriate legal steps."

The Citizen-Times started investigating the department's recording of public rallies on Aug. 27, when it filed the first in a series of public records law requests.

The practice came to light after at least two people complained about a police forensics officer recording the Mountain Moral Monday rally at Pack Square Park last summer.

The city denied the newspaper's request to watch the Moral Monday video citing part of the public records law that makes criminal intelligence and criminal investigations secret.

The city later denied the newspaper's request to see the rest of the videos. The city provided a list of videos it had after the newspaper's initial story published on Sept. 21.

City officials have given conflicting explanations for the practice, from saying the videos aid in training to saying they could be part of criminal investigations.

City Manager Gary Jackson questioned Police Chief William Anderson about it after the Moral Monday rally, according to records obtained by the Citizen-Times. Anderson told him the recording was standard procedure and meant for training purposes.

"This footage will be stored for future reference for planning future events," Anderson said in an email to his boss. "We have no other use for the video."

But the city Attorney's Office deemed the video as not being public, citing exemptions in the public records law for criminal intelligence and criminal investigations, when the newspaper asked to see it.