WILMINGTON — In an unusual move, the City of Wilmington and its police department will ask a Superior Court judge to review and release audio and video recordings on the three police officers who were fired last week for making racist comments and threats; the city requested a late July hearing.
While the Wilmington Police Department (WPD) and Wilmington City Council agreed to release information about the incident leading up to the terminations, including a partial transcript of two different conversations, the actual recordings remeaned sealed by state law. An attorney for the officers also secured an injunction, blocking the further release of information and protecting the officers’ personal information (including their addresses and contact information on court documents).
Because of a 2016 law (S.L. 2016-88), recording like these that are held by law enforcement agencies in North Carolina don’t fall under the category of public records and are kept private unless a Superior Court judge orders their release.
Many hearings related to this law involve media outlets petitioning the court for the release of footage from body or vehicle cameras, jails and detention centers, and other surveillance recordings. A petitioner, often a reporter or counselor for a media outlet, usually must argue against attorneys for the law enforcement agency involved, and sometimes the District Attorney’s office, and convince a judge that their request is in the public interest.
But in this case, the petitioner is Wilmington City Manager Sterling Cheatham, filing on behalf of the city and WPD, the city announced Tuesday morning. Sterling asked for a court date on July 29 (court calendars fill up quickly, even under ideal circumstances, and the earliest court available is often several weeks out).
It’s worth noting that both city and WPD officials have said they hope to be as transparent as possible about the case, but that they do have to respect the legal process.
Even when law enforcement agencies have no qualms about releasing this kind of information, a judge’s order is still usually required — for example, WPD had no objections to the release of STING footage of vehicles being towed during last year’s downtown holiday, but under state law could not simply release it. Other times, law enforcement agencies, through their attorneys, do object to some or all of the release, as was the case in the footage of a WPD officer who left his child outside an Odgen bar or the footage showing the recovering of the vehicle of Paige Escalera and Stephanie Mayorga.
While it doesn’t seem that the city, WPD, or the District Attorney’s office will be presenting any objections, James ‘Brian’ Gilmore, Jesse E. Moore II, and Michael ‘Kevin’ Piner have all been noticed by the court because they appear on the recordings. While typically a law enforcement agency’s attorney speaks on behalf of officers, in this case, Piner and Moore are being represented by Elizabethtown-based attorney J. Michael McGuinness. (It’s worth noting that McGuinness is not listed as representing Gilmore, who was found culpable for less severe offenses by Internal Affairs, but still terminated for violated WPD’s standard of conduct.)
As with other similar cases, the court will be asked to consider whether the following eight criteria are relevant:
- Release is necessary to advance a compelling public interest.
- The recording contains information that is otherwise confidential or exempt from disclosure or release under State or federal law.
- The person requesting release is seeking to obtain evidence to determine legal issues in a current or potential court proceeding
- Release would reveal information regarding a person that is of a highly sensitive personal nature.
- Release may harm the reputation or jeopardize the safety of a person.
- Release would create a serious threat to the fair, impartial, and orderly administration of justice.
- Confidentiality is necessary to protect either an active or inactive internal or criminal investigation or potential internal or criminal investigation.
