The eyes of the world are on Fullerton. Following a July 5 confrontation with city police Kelly Thomas, a homeless man, died July 10. His death has generated major attention in print, online and broadcast media, including “The John and Ken Show” on KFI/AM radio. Early on, we called for a thorough and open investigation.

Nearly a month later, many questions remain. At a meeting Tuesday of the Fullerton City Council that was packed with more than 200 citizens, Mr. Thomas’ father, Ron Thomas, voiced the view of many that the six Fullerton police officers used unnecessary force in subduing Kelly Thomas, leading to the man’s death. The six officers have been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation.

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The Orange County District Attorney’s Office and the FBI are investigating the case.

Ron Thomas also called for the city to release a video of the confrontation from the city’s surveillance cameras at the Fullerton Transportation Center. He said, “If the police department saw me beat somebody on a video, I’d be so far behind bars, you couldn’t find me. If I went out and committed a crime, the 9-1-1 tapes would have been released that day.”

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Councilman Bruce Whitaker already has called for the city to release the video and he was joined this week by Councilwoman Sharon Quirk-Silva. But a three-member council majority still is opposed to releasing the video. Reported the Register, “Councilman Pat McKinley, who was Fullerton’s police chief for 16 years, said the public should reserve judgment until the investigation is finished.”

But we have long decried the way investigations of police-involved deaths are handled, with the public strung out for months, the officers often exonerated, and the details of what really happened often never released. “I’ve seen how these things can straggle on over time,” Mr. Whitaker told us. “Ultimately, the public’s right to know is damaged.”

Other videos, already public, are extremely troubling. One published by the Friends of Fullerton’s Future blog, and later posted on the Register website, was taken by a camera in an Orange County Transportation Authority bus immediately after the incident. One woman getting on the bus says, “The cops are kicking this poor guy over there. … He’s almost halfway dead.” A man says, “They caught him, pound his face, pound his face against the curb … and they beat him up. They beat him up, and then all the cops came, and they hogtied him, and he was like, ‘Please God! Please Dad!'”

At Tuesday’s council meeting, the publisher of the Friends of Fullerton’s Future blog, Tony Bushala, said he was beginning a recall campaign against the three council members blocking release of the city’s video: Mr. McKinley, Mayor Richard F. Jones and Mayor Pro Tem Don Bankhead, also a former Fullerton policeman. Mr. Bushala told us that he’s conducting the recall because the three “are not accountable to the residents of Fullerton, but to the police union, which is defending the officers.”

We have not heard any legal basis for withholding the video. Police commonly release material related to investigations, such as suspect descriptions, when it might further their goals. The video should be made public.

Moreover, when police and city leaders find themselves in this kind of circumstance, they should be as forthcoming and transparent as possible so that the public has confidence in the thoroughness and fairness of the investigation. Some may say it protects the police more to withhold evidence like the video, but we believe the police are much safer when the investigation is conducted in ways that give credibility to the outcome rather than in ways that raise community suspicion that a cover-up of a crime is under way. When that happens, police will only confront a more hostile public.

The sooner the leaders of Fullerton are forthcoming about the events surrounding the death of Kelly Thomas, the better it will be for the citizens of Fullerton, the family of Mr. Thomas, and the future of the Fullerton police department. We need to know the truth of what happened.

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