Iowa Public Information Board keeps alive requests for Burlington police body camera video

DES MOINES - The Iowa Public Information Board again rejected a staff recommendation to dismiss complaints from citizens seeking police body camera video of a fatal shooting of a Burlington woman.

The board voted 4-3 Thursday against dismissal, with members saying they want more information about whether footage from body cameras - a fairly new technology - should be considered part of police investigative reports.

'If we agree this is the end of the conversation, we'll rue the day we did,” said Bill Monroe, retired director of the Iowa Newspaper Association.

The family of Autumn Steele and the Burlington Hawk Eye newspaper filed complaints with the board seeking additional information about the Jan. 6 shooting, in which Burlington police officer Jesse Hill accidentally killed Steele when he was trying to shoot her attacking dog.

Board staff recommended the board dismiss the complaint, saying the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation and Burlington Police Department did not break Iowa's Open Records law by refusing to release the full video.

Iowa Code Section 22.7(5) says: 'Peace officers' investigative reports, and specific portions of electronic mail and telephone billing records of law enforcement agencies if that information is part of an ongoing investigation, except where disclosure is authorized elsewhere in this Code” may be confidential.

Some courts have ruled the comma after 'investigation” indicates only electronic mail and telephone billing records could be made public after an investigation is closed.

Board staff and other open-government advocates have pushed to tweak the law to require agencies to release more records, but proposed changes did not pass the Iowa Legislature.

'If I were king, I would personally like to see the information made available,” said Andrew McKean, an Anamosa attorney and board member who favored dismissing the complaints. 'I've had an opportunity to review the current law and I think it is absolutely clear there had been no violation here. We are doing a disservice by trying to make law here as an appointed body.”

But Monroe and other board members argued the law was written before body cameras were in use and the video shouldn't necessarily be lumped with other records that may be kept secret.

Michael Giudicessi, a Des Moines attorney representing the Hawk Eye, played a video showing several Iowa law enforcement agency leaders talking publicly about how body cameras would improve transparency and accountability for police.

'John Quinn, police chief of Waukee, is the one saying it's a tool to allow the public to see what the police do and judge for themselves,” Giudicessi said. 'In the Autumn Steele case, the public will not be able to do that if you terminate this case today.”

The board rejected a similar recommendation in September and asked staff to work with law enforcement agencies to come to an informal resolution, but those agencies declined to compromise on the records.

With a second rejection, the next step for the board is to request a contested case hearing before an independent administrative law judge.

The board, which started hearing cases in 2013, has authority to levy civil fines of up to $2,500 for a knowing violation of Iowa's Open Records or Open Meetings laws.