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IOWA CITY, Iowa — The video is brief but disturbing: An officer is seen striking an unarmed suspect with his pistol as the man falls into the grass. An autopsy would later show he died from a gunshot to the back of the head.

After the death last July of 26-year-old Daniel Fuller in Devils Lake, North Dakota, investigators described the video to his grieving relatives. But for days, weeks and then months, they refused to release it to the family or to the public. They did so only after a prosecutor announced in November that the officer did not intend to fire his gun and would not face criminal charges.

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“It took forever for them to release the video because they kept saying it was an ongoing investigation,” said Fuller’s older sister, Allyson Bartlett. “I don’t think they wanted pressure from the community.”

Her experience is typical. An investigation by The Associated Press has found that police departments routinely withhold video taken by body-worn and dashboard-mounted cameras that show officer-involved shootings and other uses of force. They often do so by citing a broad exemption to state open records laws — by claiming that releasing the video would undermine an ongoing investigation.