North Carolina Police Shooting Footage Unsealed by Appeals Court

The Fourth Circuit has ordered that video footage involving one North Carolina police officer shooting another while executing a search warrant be unsealed on First Amendment grounds.

The officer who shot her colleague “failed to meet the high burden of demonstrating that her right to a fair trial would overcome WBTV’s clear and indisputable right of access to the video exhibits,” a three-judge panel with the US Court of Appeals for Fourth Circuit said Friday.

The court vacated a district court’s sealing order and remanded the case with instructions to unseal the video exhibits.

The appeals panel decided that it ...