The New York State Supreme Court ruled that the NYPD must release body-cam and dash-cam footage and other records related to a 2023 incident when officers drove into oncoming traffic and hit and killed a man on a dirt bike, after the Cornell Law School First Amendment Clinic sued to obtain the records on behalf of a media client. NYPD claimed that all of the records were sealed under Criminal Procedure Law section 160.50 – which seals records after a prosecution is terminated in favor of the defendant – because officers arrested the dirt biker shortly before he died, and then the charges were dropped after his death.
In his June 3 ruling, Judge Lyle E. Frank held that the sealing law does not apply in this “novel and unique” situation, and even if it did, the law still would not seal the body-cam and dash-cam footage. He also ruled that NYPD failed to show that any other exemption under the Freedom of Information Law applied.
“This is an important victory for public accountability,” said Michael Linhorst, the Clinic’s Local Journalism Attorney, who argued the case. “Under the NYPD’s theory, officers who killed a person would be able to permanently seal all the records showing what happened as long as they arrested the person for something before they died. That’s far from what the law requires. FOIL guarantees that the public can oversee its government, and that means obtaining records that show what actions police take on the streets of New York.”
Samuel Williams was riding a dirtbike in May 2023 when he was struck head-on by an unmarked NYPD vehicle that had crossed into oncoming traffic. With Williams critically injured, officers handcuffed him – reportedly while his broken leg jutted from his pants – before attempting to render aid. He died in a hospital the next day.
A journalist for The City Report, Inc., publisher of The City Reporter, filed three FOIL requests seeking the body-worn camera footage, other recordings obtained by the NYPD, and the closing memo issued by the Department’s Force Investigation Division. The NYPD claimed the records were sealed under section 160.50, and the Cornell Law School First Amendment Clinic appealed.
During oral argument on June 2, Linhorst advanced three arguments. He said the sealing statute does not apply in these circumstances to allow the NYPD to hide the actions of its own officers that caused the death of a man who was not prosecuted. Some of the records sought have already been released by the Attorney General, and the facts surrounding his arrest and death have already been made public, so preventing their release would not shield the deceased from stigma. Second, even if the sealing statute applied, these are not the type of “official records” that would be sealed under the statute. The records sought are part of the normal course of NYPD business and are not records created for the purpose of prosecuting a case. Third, Linhorst said that none of FOIL’s other exemptions to public disclosure apply.
In his ruling, Judge Frank agreed that section 160.50 does not apply. He wrote that the body-worn camera and dashcam footage are not “official records” within the meaning of the statute, as they serve a purpose not inherently tied to any arrest or prosecution. Even if they were official records, the sealing statute only applies in carefully defined circumstances, and none were present here, despite the NYPD claiming that the facts fit into subsection (3)(i), which concerns situations where the prosecutor elects not to prosecute. “[T]here was no election that occurred in this instance, as it is undisputed that Mr. Williams was not prosecuted because he was deceased,” Judge Frank wrote. Similarly, the sealing statute could not be applied to the closing memo issued by the FID.
The court denied the NYPD’s additional claimed exemptions under Public Officers Law sections 87(2)(b) and 87(2)(e)(iv) as the arguments were first raised during litigation, not at the administrative level as required.
On June 8, New York Attorney General Letitia James’ Office of Special Investigation released its report on the death of Samuel Williams. OSI closed the matter, stating that the officers involved would not be prosecuted.
Read the client’s article for more background:
State AG Declines to Prosecute NYPD Officers Involved in Fatal Motorbike Crash, The City Reporter