LITTLE ROCK — A Little Rock man won a partial victory Tuesday in his lawsuit to obtain a complete copy of the video of his traffic stop by a state trooper when a Pulaski County circuit judge ruled that Arkansas State Police should release a fuller version — if possible.
But Judge Chris Piazza refused 54-year-old Calvin Carrick’s request that state police reimburse him for the $165 he spent to file the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit challenging the agency’s decision to release a silent version of the June 15 traffic stop captured by the trooper’s dashboard camera.
Piazza said the agency acted in good faith when it withheld the video soundtrack, claiming the audio would disclose privileged information about other drivers broadcast over police radio.
Carrick said he sought the video to prepare a legal challenge to the reason his 1992 Chevrolet extended-cab, 1-ton “dually” pickup was pulled over at 83rd Street and Geyer Springs Road. He received a warning, but no citation, about how his license plate was displayed, court records show.
He told the judge the complete video would show how a “routine traffic stop” turns into “something more,” except there’s no audio on the 12-minute, 17-second recording.
“The important stuff is what’s being said,” Carrick said. “They exempted everything. You can’t even hear the cars driving by.”
Police removed the soundtrack because it contains radio broadcasts of police dispatchers relaying licensing information and criminal histories about other drivers that police are prohibited by law from releasing, police attorney Gregory Downs said. The recording clearly contains someone’s restricted criminal information, Downs told the judge, adding that he’s not sure whose it is.
It’s unusual for dashmounted videos to record that much radio traffic, Downs said, but the trooper had both his body microphone and his in-car microphone activated simultaneously. The recording was not played in court or submitted to the judge.
Arkansas Code Annotated 12-12-1003 restricts police from disclosing criminal background information obtained from the Arkansas Crime Information Center, Downs said, while federal regulations prohibit the agency from revealing information obtained from its federal counterpart, the National Crime Information Center. The federal Driver Privacy Protection Act restricts the release of licensing information obtained from the state department of motor vehicles, he said.
Carrick objected to the police interpretation of disclosure laws, arguing that the department’s view was too severe. He said he was not seeking any information about anyone other than himself and said police should have interpreted his open-records request as permission for them to disclose any privileged audio about him.
Piazza said he wanted police to examine the recording with an eye toward releasing more of the audio.
Downs said the privileged information is intermingled, perhaps inextricably, with audio that would normally be released under the openrecords law. Downs said the best the agency might be able to produce under the circumstances would be just a few seconds of audio.
State police spokesman Bill Sadler, who handles the agency’s freedom-of-information requests, told the judge that state police would try to edit the video, but said he was unsure whether the agency’s equipment was capable of the narrow editing task. Sadler said he would produce his best effort for Carrick by noon Friday.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 07/25/2012