June video of protest found, Little Rock police say

Protesters take a knee outside the Little Rock Police Department's 12th Street Station during the Take a Knee - Rally for Justice on Saturday, June 6, 2020, in Little Rock. 
(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Thomas Metthe)
Protesters take a knee outside the Little Rock Police Department's 12th Street Station during the Take a Knee - Rally for Justice on Saturday, June 6, 2020, in Little Rock. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Thomas Metthe)

Authorities in Little Rock on Tuesday were working to secure police footage from a June protest in order to provide the video to a defense attorney in response to his request, officials said, after the attorney initially was told the footage was missing from a police server.

Lt. Michael Ford, a Little Rock police spokesman, said in a phone interview Tuesday that video from the protest still exists and had not been deleted. He planned to turn the footage over to the prosecuting attorney's office the same day, he said.

Local defense attorney Michael Kaiser of the firm Lassiter and Cassinelli described the retention of video by law enforcement as a recurring problem facing clients. Defendants might be exonerated by footage, except the video already has been deleted, he explained.

Kaiser represented individuals arrested at a June 2 racial-justice protest in downtown Little Rock at West Third Street and Broadway. Demonstrators at the intersection blocked traffic during a peaceful protest amid nationwide demonstrations after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Twenty-eight people were arrested at the intersection, Little Rock police said at the time.

Kaiser had requested footage from police in advance of a trial, only to hear from a law clerk with the prosecuting attorney's office that the footage could not be found. In an email, law clerk Bradley Dixon told Kaiser that the footage was "no longer on the server," citing information received from the Little Rock Police Department.

Kaiser was informed Tuesday by the prosecuting attorney's office that the footage had been located on an old server, he said. He was told the footage would be provided to him, likely the next day, he said.

Kaiser said the episode made him question if he would have received the footage without an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette article published Tuesday, despite following legal procedures meant to obtain evidence through discovery.

"It just makes me wonder, would I have gotten it without it?" Kaiser said.

With regard to the reported issue with the server, Kaiser said, "these are like 1980s explanations for a 2020 problem."

Kaiser provided a copy of a June 5 order from Judge Melanie H. Martin of Little Rock District Court in which the judge instructed local law enforcement agencies -- including Little Rock police -- and the prosecuting attorney's office to preserve all video and audio recordings from demonstrations and arrests beginning May 25.

In an interview Tuesday, Pulaski County chief deputy prosecutor John Johnson said officials at the prosecutor's office were in the process of obtaining materials from the Police Department after police officials said the footage had been located on the older server.

Johnson maintained that the video eventually would have been located and provided to Kaiser.

He described the situation as "part of the process when you're dealing with a situation that happened some time ago and with multiple defendants where a lot of them have already been passed to dismissed and things like that."

Legal procedures generally pick up speed when a trial nears, Johnson said.

Ford said he could not provide the video from the June 2 protest to the Democrat-Gazette because a judge had requested that police hold the video and not release it pursuant to a gag order.

However, it was unclear Tuesday whether such an order existed. Also unclear was why the judge would have told the police to seal the footage related to the case.

Ford said he was unable to provide a copy of the judge's directive. Johnson, the chief deputy prosecutor, said the judge's preservation memorandum did not mention sealing records; he said he did not know what Ford was referring to.

Asked why Kaiser was told the video no longer existed, signaling a breakdown in the evidentiary process, Ford said, "the attorney must [have not] talked to the head prosecutors over there, because we've been talking. And I told them I had the video."

Ford took exception to the Democrat-Gazette article published Tuesday regarding the video footage, saying that a spokesman for the Police Department had not been given enough opportunity to respond to a reporter's request for information.

The Democrat-Gazette reached out Friday via email to police spokesmen Mark Edwards and Lt. Casey Clark about the footage issue, spoke with Edwards by phone Monday, and emailed additional details to Edwards on Monday afternoon at his request. At that point, Edwards did not reply until Tuesday morning.

Ford said the Police Department should have been given more time to respond and demanded an update or "rewrite" to the story.

"[If] I don't see an update, I'm telling you, [there's] gonna be problems," Ford said. "I'm not making any threats, I'm making promises, because that's not right, the way you did things. That's not good business."

Edwards said Tuesday that he had been working to locate the requested information the day before.

Most of Kaiser's approximately two dozen clients who were arrested during protests on June 2 -- at Third and Broadway in the afternoon, and in Little Rock later that evening -- have entered agreements to have their charges dismissed as long as they are not arrested again during the next two months.

Six have entered innocent pleas and are scheduled to appear in court in January, he said last week.

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