A body cam captured a cop’s violent encounter with a teen â but a new law keeps the video secret
Jose Charles and his mother, Tamara Figueroa. (Jordan Green/Triad City Beat)
Jose Charles was dazed, bleeding from his head and surrounded by police after an incident that would leave him accused of fighting, resisting arrest and spitting a mouthful of blood into a police officerâs face.
His mother had gone to take one of the 15-year-oldâs siblings to the bathroom at a Fourth of July celebration in Greensboro, N.C. â and returned to find an officerâs hand around Joseâs neck. On the ground, she saw âblood, lots of it.â
What happened in the interim depends on whom you ask. Police charged Jose with four crimes, including attacking an officer. The teenager and his mother say police slammed and choked him without provocation. In a month, the courtâs interpretation of the incident could determine Joseâs fate.
Meanwhile, an unbiased account â body camera footage from several officers who were at the scene of the encounter â is sitting on a server in the cloud, where almost no one can see it. Standing in the way of clarity and transparency, critics say, is a new North Carolina law that makes it more difficult than ever to view recordings of controversial interactions between police and members of the public.
Joseâs case is the first major test to North Carolinaâs HB 972 since it took effect in October â and also the most controversial.
PostTV talked to the International Union of Police Associations and the National Press Photographers Association about civilians' rights when it comes to filming law enforcement. Here's what you should know. (The Washington Post)
Activists say the teenagerâs case is another example of police brutality from a police department that has had two officers resign amid an investigation of excessive force involving a black person. The new law has layered frustration on top of the criticsâ fury. On Tuesday night, several activists aired their concerns at a city council meeting in Greensboro, asking elected officials to try to delay Joseâs case or have the charges dropped altogether â and to force the release of the video.
âWhat possible harm to the case or to the community could there be if they release the footage?â Lewis Pitts, a retired lawyer who has spoken to city council members about the case, told The Washington Post. âThe only harm is it creates liability and embarrassment for the police department. Thatâs the only thing driving this police secrecy.â
The law requires anyone who wants to see police body camera footage to pay a fee and plead their case to a Superior Court judge. State Rep. John Faircloth, a former police chief-turned-legislator who sponsored the bill, conceded that the law gives an inordinate amount of power to prosecutors, who have the most information about whether releasing body-cam footage would jeopardize a personâs right to a fair trial.
But Jose Charlesâs mom, Tamara Figueroa, cares less about the nuances of North Carolinaâs open-records laws and more about the future of her son, who, she said, suffers from schizoaffective disorder.
She said prosecutors have told her that if Jose doesnât plead guilty to assault, theyâll ask a judge to send him to a training school, which Figueroa calls âa kiddie jail,â unequipped to treat his mental illness. It could change his life for the worse.
The video could change public perception and her sonâs fate, Figueroa said: She has seen the footage and remains adamant that her son didnât assault a police officer. At a minimum, Figueroa says, the police department and the district attorneyâs office need to take a harder look at the case before Joseâs next court date in May.
A judge already has blocked the release of the video to Figueroa, after the district attorney filed a motion saying she probably would release it to the public, Pitts told The Washington Post.
The lack of public access to the footage has rankled civil rights leaders. City council members also have said theyâd like to see the video, although theyâre waiting to find out whether Greensboroâs police chief will revisit his decision not to charge the officers.
Both the Greensboro Police Department and District Attorney Doug Hendersonâs office declined to comment for this article because it involves an ongoing criminal case about a juvenile.
Figueroa thinks prosecutors and police just want the case to go away. If her son enters a plea, she said, âno one has to reinvestigate. No one has to view the camera footage. Thereâs no civil liability, no public apology.â
She added that âweâre not pleading guilty.â
For weeks before the incident, Jose had been involved in a war of words on social media with a group of boys, his mother said.
It turned violent as the family attended Greensboroâs annual Independence Day celebration. Figueroaâs youngest child and niece had to use the bathroom that day, but Jose and the older children didnât want to stand in the long line for the portable toilets.
While he waited, Jose was found by the boys heâd been fighting with on social media. Things turned violent and Jose got the worst of it, his mother said.
Waiting in the restroom line, Figueroa saw the commotion and started running toward her son. On her way, she said, one of the teenagerâs close friends called Figueroa on her cellphone.
âSheâs screaming, just screaming, âTheyâre beating him; the police are beating him!,â â Figueroa said. âWhen I got there, I found Jose handcuffed in an alleyway, beaten, bloody, being choked.â
Jose told his mom that the boys he fought with scattered when police arrived, but that he had stayed put, waiting for her.
He said heâd taken off his shirt to wipe the blood from his face as an officer walked up and asked what happened.
âNâ-a, I just got jumped,â he told the officer, according to the family.
Then, they say, the officer slammed him to the ground.
He was handcuffed and lying on his side, blood from a head wound trickling into his mouth. When he tried to stand, officers knocked him back to the ground, the family says. He swore at the officers, demanding they let him up.
He later told his mother that when he got to his feet, he spit out blood, but it was more of a gagging reflex than an attempt to spit on the officer.
The authorities didnât believe him â and Figueroa concedes she didnât fully trust his account, either.
But she knew the officers had been wearing body cameras. The truth, she figured, would be on video.
Four months passed before she, her son and their attorney were brought to police headquarters to see the footage.
Afterward, she said, she wanted the whole city to see it.
The city of Greensboro was one of the first in the nation to get police body cameras, and the initial results from the program were highlighted in recommendations to other agencies by the Police Executive Research Forum. The cameras, city leaders said, would make both officers and the people they interact with more civil. When things went wrong, the video could help resolve disputes, according to the Greensboro New & Record .
But the Greensboro Police Department, like many North Carolina law enforcement agencies, elected to make body-camera recordings part of officer personnel files â making it nearly impossible for the public to see the record, said Jonathan Jones, director of the Sunshine Center of the North Carolina Open Government Coalition at Elon University.
HB 972 then raised a bar many already thought was too high to access a police video record, Jones told The Post.
âIt created a significant hurdle for anyone who wants to see police video,â he said. âThat hurdle is they have to go to court, they have to pay a $200 fee â just to ask for permission to see it. And they have to file legal documents ⊠with the assistance of a lawyer. And then thereâs a hearing to be held if thereâs a dispute over whether or not a video should be released.â
Faircloth, the Guilford County Republican who wrote the legislation, said its intent was to take the politics out of requests for body-camera footage.
âSo many departments began getting body cameras and there were no rules,â Faircloth said. âEverybody was sort of operating their own way and not understanding the impact of those issues. It would be nice if we could react to every desire that we have to know whatâs going on in issues like this. But we have a justice system that says, âWait, we have to take this a step at a time.â â
Pitts said the district attorneyâs office has told a judge that releasing the video would affect Jose Charlesâs case.
Sharon Hightower, a city council member who approved getting body cameras for Greensboroâs police officers, said she voted to do so âbecause I can brag, thereâs nothing going on, the camera will show that. If thereâs something going on, the camera will show that. I believe that creates more transparency. ⊠And then came along and said nope, wait a minute, letâs change when you can view it.â
Now, she said, âthe process doesnât work. It only works for the police. Itâs working for the judge. Itâs working the legislature. So it just leads to unrest.â
Indeed, some fear Jose Charlesâs case could spark anti-police protests like ones that roiled nearby Charlotte last year .
In Greensboro, the communityâs relationship with the police department is already strained after a white officer violently arrested a black man who was sitting on his motherâs porch, waiting for her to get home.
Video from that case and from the fatal shooting of a knife-wielding mentally disabled Vietnamese woman was released by the city council before HB 972 took effect.
Police were criticized in both cases. But Hightower, the council member, said she was able to tell her constituents that even when wrong, the city and its police department were transparent.
Hightower said the council will most likely petition the judge to see the Jose Charles video. In the meantime, activists are planning nearly a month of protests before the teenagerâs next court date.
If you do any mentorship work with students in Greensboro show up for this high school student, Jose Charles, who was beaten by GPD. #NCAT pic.twitter.com/x5JHbpUJt6
â Delaney Vandergrift (@delaneypv15) March 15, 2017