Shortly before Thanksgiving last year, 37-year-old Wilmington resident Corey Temoney was arrested on Princess Place Drive. Parts of the incident were captured in a roughly two-minute video, in which Temoney appeared pinned down by a deputy from the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office, eventually assisted by several members of the Wilmington Police Department and a firefighter.
The video appears to show Temoney repeatedly saying he was “not resisting” while he was being held down. It also showed one sheriff’s deputy appeared to use his open palm to strike Temoney in the face and push his face into the ground. Temoney and bystanders told WHQR they felt the deputies' use of force was excessive.
Temoney later shared the video of his arrest on social media, and it got a significant response, but the story didn’t get any traction in the local news ecosystem.
WHQR reviewed the video, witness accounts, arrest and court paperwork, and spoke with law enforcement spokespeople, and ultimately found a number of inconsistencies.
In order to paint a more complete picture of the incident, in February WHQR filed a petition in Superior Court for the release of all law enforcement body-worn camera recordings of the incident. WHQR was represented by Beth Soja, the Reporters Committee’s North Carolina-based attorney, and attorneys at the Duke Law School First Amendment Clinic.
In an order signed September 21, Superior Court Judge Ricardo Jensen ruled in favor of WHQR’s petition, ordering the Wilmington Police Department and New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office to release recordings within two weeks.
The order addresses several key considerations required by state law governing the release of law enforcement footage. Those include whether there is a compelling public interest and whether releasing the video would include sensitive or confidential information, interfere with an active investigation or case, or harm a reputation or jeopardize someone's safety.
The order found that, based on WHQR’s reporting, “because cell phone videos of the incident only show a portion of the law enforcement interaction, there is compelling public interest that the public at large have the full picture of what transpired between Mr. Temoney and law enforcement.”
The videos also show a second person who was arrested; the order stated that person, along with bystanders, will be blurred to protect their privacy. Personally identifying information for that second person and Temoney will also be redacted.
The charges against Temoney were resolved in December, and attorneys for WPD NHCSO did not indicate there were any investigations into the law enforcement officers involved, so the court found this was not an issue.
In considering potential harm, the court found “that the reputation of both the law enforcement officers involved and Mr. Temoney could be harmed by release of the recordings. However, the Court does not believe that there is significant safety concern to either law enforcement or Mr. Temoney.”
In conclusion, Jensen’s order found “good cause” to release all recordings, with the noted redactions and blurring.
“It goes without saying that ‘the freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty,’” he wrote, quoting the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights.
“Whether one agrees with the type of reporting or not, the press provides an important function of shedding light on government functions that are not always easily accessible to the public at large,” Jensen wrote. “Here, WHQR has shown that the story on which they have already reported needs additional clarification that only the law enforcement recordings can provide. Therefore, there is good cause shown to release all portions of the recordings.”
