Editorial: Releasing police body cam videos should be quick, routine.

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

The most obvious conclusion to draw from finally viewing the police body cam video of the shooting by police of a 17-year-old crime suspect last February is that the video should have been released a long time ago.

The events seen on the video are simply those as already described in public police reports, court documents and statements from police officers and prosecutors. Except that the images are dark, wobbly, loud and, because they begin just as officers are running to the scene of an apparent street fight, not necessarily sharp enough to prove anything all by themselves.

Thus it is difficult to see why Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill stuck for so long to his argument that releasing the video prematurely would somehow prejudice the case against Abdullahi "Abdi" Mohamed. Sitting on the video for all these months, even after the defendant's name, likeness and all the things he is accused of doing were on the public record, was much more likely to leave the public with the impression that releasing it would only undermine that case or, worse, shift the blame to the police.

In a country already divided and disturbed by moving images of police opening fire on young men of color, any move to keep such evidence out of the public eye, even temporarily, smacks of official cover-up.

That is why the release to the public of such video should be routine, no more complicated or suspenseful than the release of written reports, arrest warrants and other official documents that the criminal justice system provides to the press and public every day.

It is certainly disturbing to watch a human being gunned down on a public street, even when the video seems to show that the officers' target was brandishing a sort of weapon and that officers shouted over and over their command for him and another person to drop their weapons before they pulled the trigger. Whether the threat of serious bodily harm to the other person involved was so imminent that opening fire was necessary or wise might not be settled by the video alone.

It, along with a lot of other evidence, moved Gill to conclude months ago that the shooting was legally justified. And Gill used it in court Monday as part of his successful argument that the aggravated robbery and drug charges against Mohamed should go to trial.

After that hearing, Gill finally released what the ACLU and Salt Lake Tribune had been calling for. He said it was something that was always going to happen, a matter, he said, not of if but when.

It should have been then.