Friday, May 19, 2017

"The court ordered the City Council not to talk about the videos because Charles was a juvenile when he was arrested."

"...It's easy to see why the City Council hid behind the court order, because the people in the room wanted the City Council to take action and the majority of the City Council had decided not to take any action and to let the Charles case go forward.

...But on Wednesday, in front of a select group of media who were notified or found out about the press conference, Mayor Nancy Vaughan and Councilmembers Marikay Abuzuaiter, Nancy Hoffmann and Justin Outling deemed that the restrictions on speaking about the videos no longer applied and they could make a statement about their decision to uphold the findings and conclusions of the city manager and police chief.

...the city manager and police chief found that no disciplinary action should be taken against the police officers making the arrest.  In essence, that no laws or city policies were violated.

The judge's order had not changed.

If it was illegal for the mayor and city councilmembers to talk about their decision on Tuesday night, as they said, then it was illegal on Wednesday afternoon.
 
...Outling, who is an attorney, said that in his opinion his statement concerning the City Council's decision about what action to take after viewing the police body-worn camera videos of the arrest of Charles did not violate the judge's order not to speak about the video.

City Councilmember Mike Barber, who is also an attorney, strongly disagreed.  Barber said that the City Council was ordered not to talk about the video and the statements made by Vaughan, Outling, Hoffmann and Abuzuaiter violated that order.

...If the court order not to talk about the video outside of closed session means that they can't talk about the video then four councilmembers should not have held a press conference to talk about the video..."

http://www.myvirtualpaper.com/doc/rhino-times/may-11-2017/2017051001/#2