The Clark County School District has about a month to turn over public records related to a February incident in which a student was violently detained by district police.
A Las Vegas judge ruled Monday that the district has to provide footage from body cameras, citations, incident reports, and dispatch logs to the ACLU of Nevada, which is suing because CCSD refused an earlier public records request.
Christopher Peterson, legal director of the ACLU of Nevada, said the ruling is just the first step.
“Once the body worn camera is released, of course, the next question is: ‘Did the district react appropriately once it learned about this incident?’”
Almost a year ago, district police Lt. Jason Elfberg, who is white, was filmed putting a Black student in a chokehold, throwing him into a gutter and kneeling on his back. The teen had been filming as police detained another student, who is also Black.
Attorneys for both sides were in court Tuesday to discuss the release of a second set of records, this one including more than 3,300 pages of emails and attachments related to the incident.
“Obviously, that’s a lot of documents,” said Jackie Nichols, who represents the school district. “After I’m done doing my privilege review, obviously, the client and the executive staff, such as the board of trustees and [District Superintendent Jesus] Jara would have to confirm that.”
The district must provide a detailed list of those records to the ACLU within 60 days.
The ACLU of Nevada is representing two of the students involved. Peterson said his client’s filming of the initial incident was protected by the First Amendment.
“Everyday people play an important role in police accountability by taking out their cell phones or taking out the recording devices and recording what’s going on.”
The current lawsuit, which was filed in April, is just about getting access to public records. Peterson explained so far, the ACLU of Nevada hasn’t received “any documents whatsoever” from the district.
“We will continue working on this case until the documents that we are entitled to are in our possession,” he explained.
Once ACLU staff have had a chance to review those records, Peterson said they could be back in court to hold district employees accountable.
“The first step towards accountability is transparency,” he said.
The photo included in this story is licensed under Flickr Creative Commons.
