Surveillance video of a Rikers Island jail unit where a handcuffed inmate was beaten by six guards in 2012 should be released because it has already been played in an open disciplinary hearing, according to the state's public-records committee.
The opinion by Robert Freeman, executive director of the Committee on Open Government, is at odds with the city Department of Correction, which has repeatedly refused The Associated Press' request for footage surrounding Robert Hinton's beating in a now-shuttered solitary confinement dorm for mentally ill inmates.
Mayor Bill de Blasio has promised reforms at Rikers, a 10-facility jail complex in the East River, which has come under increased scrutiny in the past year over surging levels of violence and struggles to properly treat mentally ill inmates.
According to those who have viewed it, the video from a hallway camera shows Hinton being carried, hogtied, into his cell by a group of guards and then, about 10 minutes later, brought out. Hinton, whom an administrative law judge described as a gang member with an attempted murder conviction, was left with a broken nose, a fractured back and a bloodied, badly swollen face.
A corrections department investigation found Hinton was beaten for refusing to be escorted, and that to justify the use of force, the guards fabricated a story that Hinton put one of them in a chokehold.
At the time of the AP's April 1 request for the video, it had already been played in a March disciplinary hearing that resulted in an administrative law judge recommending that Capt. Budnarine Behari and five correction officers be fired.
That public airing of the video, Freeman wrote in his opinion, was the strongest argument for it to be released.
Still, city Correction Department lawyers denied the AP's request for the video, as well as an appeal of that denial.
Department lawyer Nadene Pinnock wrote that the video was exempt from release because it is a personnel record used to evaluate an employee's performance, its release could endanger the safety of the guards depicted in it, and a state law grants officers a personal privacy exemption from disclosure.
"None of the exceptions to rights of access cited by the Department can be justified," Freeman wrote in his Nov. 7 advisory opinion, which is not enforceable.
What the Department of Correction plans to do now is unclear. Officials refused to comment on Freeman's opinion, and Commissioner Joseph Ponte hasn't yet decided whether he will accept the judge's recommendation to fire the six guards.
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Experts say it's notoriously difficult to get New York law enforcement agencies to release records regarding their employees' conduct because agency lawyers broadly interpret what's considered a personnel record.
Brian Barrett, an AP lawyer, said that in light of Freeman's opinion, he would urge the department's counsel to reconsider their decision to not release the video.
Hinton, who is suing the city in federal court, is now serving time in an upstate prison for violating parole.
An inmate advocate who attended the disciplinary hearing and watched the video said it was very disturbing to see Hinton's limp body brought out of the cell and placed face-down on a gurney before he was rushed to a hospital.
"You can only imagine what's happening in there," Hadley Fitzgerald told the AP after seeing the footage.
