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The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah said Thursday it is seeking release of a video of a Salt Lake City police officer shooting 17-year-old Abdi Mohamed in February.
The ACLU said it submitted a public records request for video footage from an officer's body-mounted camera to the police department and the Salt Lake County district attorney's office, which is still reviewing the shooting. Under state law, the agencies have 10 business days to provide the video or issue a reply.
Salt Lake City police have said Mohamed was one of two people seen attacking someone with a metal object on the night of Feb. 27 in the Rio Grande neighborhood. An officer shot Mohamed multiple times, but he survived.
The shooting spawned an angry crowd that night and peaceful protests in the days that followed.
The request, by the ACLU and Salt Lake City attorney David Reymann, was made the day after a new law, HB300, went into effect. That law makes footage from police body cams subject to the same disclosure rules as other public records.
"The public has a right to know what happened in a critical incident like this one," Reymann said in a news release, adding that the new law "makes quite clear that this type of footage should be made public upon request."
In addition, the ACLU said the footage does not fall under any exception in the state's Government Records Access and Management Act (GRAMA) that would block its release.
Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said Thursday he had not seen the request, but he pointed out that under GRAMA, records created for civil, criminal or administrative enforcement purposes are protected if their release could reasonably be expected to interfere with an ongoing investigation or would create a danger of depriving a person of a right to a fair trial.