Judge orders release of Los Altos Skate Park shooting videos

A Bernalillo County District Court judge on Thursday ordered the city of Albuquerque to release the videos the Albuquerque Police Department says shows Jaquise Lewis being shot and killed during an altercation at the Los Altos Skate Park.

The city of Albuquerque will also have to pay Lewis’s mother up to $100 for each day since April 10 until the day the videos are released as statutory damages.

Read: Memorandum of Law; Finding of Fact and Conclusions of Law

Judge Victor Lopez issued a writ of mandamus Thursday ordering APD to fully produce all items sought by Lewis’s mother, Munah Green, and her attorney in an April 10 Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA) request.

The initial public records request asked for nine groupings of public records relating to the shooting, including all police reports from Lewis’s March 22 shooting death, all 911 calls, “any and all unedited and unredacted videos” taken at the scene, including lapel camera footage, audio transcripts, a list of all APD officers at the scene, police radio broadcasts, and broader requests regarding the Los Altos Skate Park over the past five years.

Green and her attorney filed a civil lawsuit against the city and APD regarding the shooting, accusing APD of her son’s wrongful death and civil rights violations. The non-jury trial began Nov. 20.

The public records violations were a portion of the lawsuit, which claims APD used “selective screen shots” from cellphone video of the scene to make it appear as though Lewis had a gun in a May 8 news conference.

Green and her attorney at the time were able to watch the full video in a private session June 22, which Judge Lopez says “complied with the spirit of IPRA,” but he wrote that when evidence and disclosures were released at trial, “the extent of that disclosure is uncertain and the disclosure was long overdue.”

“Defendant should complete its IPRA disclosure with regard to any documents that have not been disclosed to date,” Judge Lopez continued.

He also wrote that the City Attorney’s Office disclosed too much in the lead up to the trial, then later “sought to have returned to the City based on a claim of error in disclosing privileged or exempt investigatory records.”

He ruled that that “accidental” disclosure “essentially resulted in a waiver of the privilege or exemption under IPRA, and it discredits the City’s claim of privilege/exemption as criminal investigatory records.”

“Defendant [City of Albuquerque] shall release a copy of the video forthwith,” he wrote. “Nothing in IPRA indicates that a governmental body can deny a citizens request for information because some of this information may be exempt.”

The city had argued some of the material deserved a “‘law enforcement’ exemption,” which Judge Lopez also quashed.

Judge Lopez wrote that the city and APD “willfully ignored” the “lawful requests for public records” and says “[i]t took [Green] initiating a civil complaint to get this information, and [Green] is entitled to the remedies associated with enforcement of IPRA.”

Judge Lopez wrote he awarded the $100 per day damages “given the extent to which [the city] ignored [Green’s] otherwise lawful requests.

Green will also be reimbursed for court costs, attorney’s fees and recovery of costs. Her attorney, Ahmad Assed, will have to submit an affidavit totaling the amount of time he worked for her, including description of the services he provided, an explanation of the complexity of the case and an explanation of his standing in the legal community.

Police say Lewis was killed in self-defense, but some witnesses have said the opposite. No arrests have been made in the case so far.

KOB asked the city and APD if they could give a specific date as to when the video would be released, as was ordered under IPRA law by Judge Lopez.

Albuquerque City Attorney Jessica Hernandez released the following statement to KOB Thursday evening after the court ruling came down:

“This shooting was a tragedy that left one person dead and six others injured. There is at least one additional shooter that investigators are working to identify. Premature release of information will compromise those efforts and make it more difficult to solve this case.”

This story was originally published at KOB.com