Editorial Roundup: North Carolina
Winston-Salem Journal. May 1, 2021.
Editorial: Police video law leads to mistrust
The tortuous slow drip of police video footage in the fatal police shooting of Andrew Brown Jr. in Elizabeth City has confounded national media, which have struggled to explain this state’s convoluted police video law to the rest of the country.
Welcome to North Carolina.
And if it’s any consolation to our visitors, we don’t get it either.
As counter as the law is to the spirit of trust, open government and accountability, that’s how we roll here. And it needs to end.
And if it’s any consolation to our visitors, we don’t get it either.
As counter as the law is to the spirit of trust, open government and accountability, that’s how we roll here. And it needs to end.
Consider how, only a day earlier, the city of Columbus, Ohio, handled a similar situation very differently.
Following a fatal police shooting of a Black 16-year-old girl, authorities released body-camera footage of the incident within hours. In Elizabeth City, it will be a matter of weeks.
A Superior Court judge ruled Wednesday that the police footage will not be made public, as both media outlets and the Pasquotank Sheriff’s Office had requested, for at least another 30 days.