Deters: Video release could 'jeopardize' probe

Scroll to the bottom of this story to see Mayor John Cranley and UC President Santa Ono's press conference regarding the incident.

It’ll all come down to what’s on the video, but the public continues to be kept in the dark about the footage purported to show a University of Cincinnati police officer fatally shooting an unarmed man this week.

Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters, City Hall and the university continued to refuse to release the footage Wednesday – despite the public continuing to call for answers and threats of a lawsuit from The Enquirer for potential violation of state open records laws.

“We have to do the right thing, and that doesn’t mean blasting it all over the media when we haven’t completed our interviews, received the coroner’s report or results of the ballistics test,” Deters told The Enquirer. “I’m not going to jeopardize my investigation.”

The investigation into what led Officer Ray Tensing to fatally shoot 43-year-old Samuel Dubose during a traffic stop in Mount Auburn on Sunday is moving along quickly, Deters said. The prosecutor plans to present preliminary findings of his investigation to a grand jury Thursday.

Deters said he has reviewed all video footage, but declined to comment when asked to discuss specifics about the content. He reiterated his investigation will be completed by the end of next week.

“We are in a very sensitive time in this investigation,” Deters said. “I want the grand jury to look at this thing clean.”

The government’s withholding of the footage is a violation of the Ohio Public Records Act, Enquirer attorney Jack Greiner said. He sent letters to the city and UC on Wednesday demanding the footage from Tensing’s body camera and a security camera from a nearby building be released immediately.

The Enquirer also has asked the city and university to release any recordings of dispatch calls made by Tensing and 911 calls and the incident report.

In the letters, Greiner threatened a lawsuit against the city and university if the records are not released.

Ono: UC wanted to release video footage

In an email to the media, Deters’ office cited two reasons for withholding the body camera footage:

•“Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Ohio Revised Code Section 149.43 (A) (1) (v): Release could jeopardize a possible future fair trial.”

•“Ohio Revised Code Section 149.43 (A) (1) (h): Confidential law enforcement investigatory records. See specifically Ohio Revised Code Section 149.43 (A) (2) (c): Specific confidential investigatory techniques or procedures or specific investigatory work product, and State of Ohio ex rel. Mark W. Miller vs. Ohio State Highway Patrol, 2014-Ohio-2244.”

Deters’ office did not mention a reason for withholding the building surveillance footage.

Greiner refuted both reasons provided by Deters’ office. The Enquirer’s attorney responded:

•In the case of the Sixth Amendment fair trial guarantee, Greiner cited an Ohio Supreme Court case decided in March involving The Enquirer. In Enquirer v. Sage, the court rejected a prosecutor’s unsubstantiated claim that the release of a 911 call recording would deny a defendant his Sixth Amendment rights. This ruling would apply here. There is no good-faith basis to contend that release of the video would impact anyone’s fair trial.

•The Miller case related to an arrest for Operating a Vehicle Impaired (OVI). The 12th District Court of Appeals found that the release of the video would potentially disclose confidential investigatory techniques related to the investigation of an OVI offense. In the UC incident, however, Dubose was stopped for missing a front license plate. The Miller case has no good-faith application here.

Reporters questioned Mayor John Cranley and UC President Santa Ono during a joint press conference Wednesday about the reasons for withholding the video footage.

“We were prepared to release the video as an institution, but we are following the process and it’s really a matter of the prosecutor of Hamilton County to decide the timing of that release,” Ono said.

Cranley said he has talked with Deters several times this week about the incident.

“He believes an early (public) viewing is an obstruction of justice,” Cranley said. “It’s his expertise – not mine – his decision, but I understand it. I believe him when he says he’s taking this matter very seriously and working very quickly to bring this to a place where the video can be released.”

Experts say footage should ‘expedite’ probe

Whatever the footage shows, it likely will be the cornerstone of whether Tensing faces criminal charges for his use of force, criminology experts told The Enquirer.

“It can serve to essentially exonerate police officers, or it can serve in opposite fashion as evidence against them,” said Michael White, an Arizona State University criminology professor who has been studying the use of body-worn cameras for the Department of Justice.

“The evidentiary value is enormous, and it should greatly expedite the investigative process,” White said.

If Dubose and Tensing got in a struggle at the car door, as police officials have described, that might make the body-worn camera footage a bit hard to see. “If it’s on the officer’s chest or sunglasses, you’re going to see this jostling back and forth, but you won’t be able to see much because the camera’s almost too close,” White said.

Overall, however, White said the body-worn camera footage could be more useful than the building surveillance footage because it will allow the viewer to see things from the officer’s perspective.

But don’t discount the value of the building-camera footage because it’s more likely to have caught the entire encounter, Bowling Green State University Professor Philip Stinson said.

Footage has been key to officers being charged

Since 2005, 55 police officers have been charged or indicted by grand juries in instances where they used deadly force, Stinson said. He has been tracking instances of officer arrests for more than a decade.

In nearly all of those cases, there were additional factors that helped lead to the charges – including that the shooting was caught on camera, be it dash camera, body-worn camera, citizen cellphone footage or surveillance camera.

Nineteen of the cases are still pending. In 24 cases, the charged officers were either acquitted or the charges were ultimately dismissed. Convictions came in the remaining 12.

Police would be wise to release the footage sooner rather than later for transparency’s sake, White said.

“Departments have varied on that a little bit, with some declining to release until the investigation is complete,” White said. “When that happens in places like Cincinnati, where there’s a history of antagonism between police and the minority population, some people see that as the police being less than transparent. You want to consider the consequences of delaying the release.”

All protests surrounding the UC incident have been peaceful. Dubose supporters plan to protest outside Deters' office at 11 a.m. Thursday.

Talking openly with the community can go a long way, White said.

“You can explain in a reasonable fashion why it’s going to take a few days or a week before the actual video is released,” he said. “If you can articulate clearly, it can go a long way.”