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California cops using PR firms to edit ‘slick’ bodycam clips of shootings, use of force to spin narrative: Report

Critical Incident Videos LLC’s clientele reportedly includes police departments in Oakland, Hayward, San Leandro, Vallejo, Sonoma County, Concord, Menlo Park, and Pittsburg, California
PUBLISHED MAY 17, 2021
People walk down 16th street after 'Defund The Police' was painted on the street near the White House on June 08, 2020, in Washington, DC (Getty Images)
People walk down 16th street after 'Defund The Police' was painted on the street near the White House on June 08, 2020, in Washington, DC (Getty Images)

Several California law-enforcement agencies are reportedly turning to public relations firms to make videos explaining police shootings in the wake of George Floyd's death. As per a news report, a firm run by former TV news reporters has contracted with about 100 agencies up and down the state. 

Vacaville-based Critical Incident Videos LLC’s clientele reportedly includes police departments in Oakland, Hayward, San Leandro, Vallejo, Sonoma County, Concord, Menlo Park, and Pittsburg. The agency’s résumé reportedly includes videos of several highly criticized deaths in recent years, including Sean Monterrosa in Vallejo, Steven Taylor in San Leandro, and Joseph Perez in Fresno.

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A mural painted by artist Kenny Altidor depicting George Floyd is unveiled on a sidewall of CTown Supermarket on July 13, 2020, in the Brooklyn borough New York City. (Getty Images)

Monterrosa was a 22-year-old Latino American man. He was fatally shot on June 2, 2020, by Vallejo police officer Jarrett Tonn. Monterrosa was reportedly on his knees and had his hands above his waist when Tonn shot him through the windshield of his unmarked police pickup truck.

In April 2020, 33-year-old Taylor was shot and killed by police inside a Walmart store after dispatchers got a call that he was walking around swinging a baseball bat and appeared threatening to customers. Jason Fletcher, who fired the fatal shot and who is no longer on the force, was charged with voluntary manslaughter.

Forty-one-year-old Perez died May 10, 2017. An autopsy by the Fresno County Coroner ruled that his death was due to compressive asphyxia during restraint by the Fresno Police Department and paramedics. The Fresno PD claims officers stopped to talk with Perez and believed he seemed to be showing signs of distress. Officers then allegedly brought Perez to the sidewalk, but placed him in handcuffs and laid him on his stomach, saying it was for his own safety. 

As per Mercury News, the edited camera footage produced by PR agencies may not even show the actual use of force. Reportedly, this is the PDs’ attempt to comply with a 2019 state transparency law. Police agencies, as per the report, argue that they are putting out the material to comply with Assembly Bill 748, the 2019 law requiring that body camera footage of police shootings and other significant force incidents be released within two months.

Black Lives Matter activist holds a sign against police brutality in front of the Ohio Statehouse in reaction to the shooting of Makiyah Bryant on April 20, 2021, in Columbus, Ohio. (Getty Images)

Civil rights attorneys and families of people killed by police, the report says, claim the videos are a vehicle for law enforcement to create an early narrative and spin the story in their favor while keeping raw footage out of public view in violation of another state law. “This is not about free speech, this is not about getting the facts out to the public, this is about spinning it in the best possible PR for the police departments,” said civil rights attorney Michael Haddad. “The reason we know that is they deny the victims and their families access to this information and these videos so that the departments can get their story out to the public first.”

Mercury News obtained emails through a records request and reported that less than three hours after Fletcher shot and killed Taylor inside Walmart last year, the department began crafting its message. Before sending out a news release, then-Chief Jeff Tudor emailed Critical Incident Videos LLC, asking them to begin stitching together video and audio of the fatal encounter. He got a reply almost immediately: “Getting started,” the email from the firm to Tudor read.

As per the report, San Leandro police captains gathered body camera footage and 911 tapes and sent over third-party videos. A script was written for Tudor to read on camera, then reviewed and revised by attorneys for the city, according to the emails. In the video, Tudor said Fletcher killed Taylor after he refused orders to put down the bat and Taser shots failed to stop his movement toward the officer. 

What was omitted from this narrative was something independent investigators for San Leandro reportedly concluded: By engaging Taylor so directly, Fletcher put himself in harm’s way, missing the chance to de-escalate the confrontation. The edited video was released four days after Taylor was killed on April 18, 2020. Despite the video’s contentions, Fletcher has since been charged with manslaughter.

A man holds a Black Lives Matter sign as a police car burns during a protest on May 29, 2020, in Atlanta, Georgia. (Getty Images)

Adante Pointer, an attorney representing a family against the Hayward Police Department on June 1, 2020, shooting of a 17-year-old, said: “It’s a slick marketing piece that is being put together, in my opinion, to justify the police version of the events and not what the law was initially intended for, which is to give transparency to the public, so the public can evaluate whether what the police did was wrong or right.”

“Bottom line is they can edit the video in order to withhold certain sensitive information but there’s no provision in either law that says you can withhold until your vendor produces a video package for distribution,” said Glen Smith, a media lawyer with the First Amendment Coalition.

Laura Cole, a former journalist and the executive director of Critical Incident Videos, however, has dismissed criticism of her firm’s presentations. “Someone from the outside needs to put out the video and provide context,” said Cole, who also runs Cole Pro Media, another police consulting firm. Cole said she encouraged her clients to release all the footage separately from the videos her firm produces. Her firm, she said, does not release mug shots or do anything to demonize a person. 

“Never should these videos criminalize someone, they should not justify the officers’ actions, there should never be spin,” Cole said. “It’s really important they have to be factual, they should not be trying to make the cops look good, they shouldn’t be to make the cops look bad either.”

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