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Judge says Burlington violated records law in shooting case

News

October 12th, 2018 by Ric Hanson

BURLINGTON, Iowa (AP) — A judge says the city of Burlington and the Iowa Criminal Investigation Division broke Iowa law by refusing to turn over all records gathered in investigating a police officer’s accidental shooting of a Burlington woman. The Hawk Eye reports that Administrative Law Judge Karen Doland said in the decision she filed Monday that the public’s right to transparency should have outweighed officials’ desire for secrecy.

The newspaper and the family of Autumn Steele have sought the records since she was fatally shot on Jan. 6, 2015, by an officer responding to a fight between Steele and her husband. A federal judge already has ordered the city to release body camera video from the officer, his medical records and a portion of the state investigative files.