Judge blocks release of Reinoehl documents after Thurston Sheriff files lawsuit
Thurston County Sheriff’s Office has successfully sued to prevent use-of-force reports and body camera footage related to the shooting of Michael Reinoehl from being released to a reporter from Reason Foundation who filed a public records act request for them in September.
The records likely contain statements and narratives from the officers who shot Reinoehl, according to a motion filed by the sheriff’s office asking the court to block their release.
On Wednesday, Thurston County Superior Court Judge Carol Murphy granted TCSO’s motion for a temporary restraining order, which blocks the records from being released by the state Department of Corrections (DOC) until Jan. 8, when the court will decide whether to grant a longer-lasting preliminary injunction.
The DOC, one of the agencies involved in the task force that shot and killed Reinoehl, had planned to release the records in a redacted form on Dec. 23, the lawsuit says.
Thurston County Sheriff’s Office is the lead agency investigating the shooting, in which members of a U.S. Marshals task force shot and killed Reinoehl as he was getting into his car outside an apartment complex in the Tanglewilde neighborhood near Lacey on the night of Sept. 3. Reinoehl was the suspect in a shooting that killed a right-wing demonstrator at a Trump rally in Portland on Aug. 29.
Washington state’s Initiative 940 requires that investigations of police shootings be conducted by an agency that was not involved in the shooting.
The agency has previously denied requests for records related to their investigation of the shooting, citing a section of the state’s Public Records Act that exempts certain ongoing disciplinary investigations of other state agencies’ employees from being released if privacy is “essential to effective law enforcement.”
But that same I-940 law — which seeks to ensure credible and independent investigations of police shootings — is now being used as a legal argument by the sheriff’s office to thwart attempts by journalists to investigate the high-profile police shooting.
In their initial complaint filed Dec. 15, the sheriff’s office points to a clause in I-940 that directs the investigative team to create a “firewall” preventing the “involved agency” (DOC) from sharing “compelled statements” from the officer under investigation with the investigative team (Thurston County Sheriff’s).
The officers’ statements, while not public, are referenced in an October article in the New York Times.
The sheriff’s office then argues that because the DOC records are relevant to their ongoing investigation of the Reinoehl shooting, releasing them would result in the sheriff’s office seeing them, which would compromise their investigation.
“Additionally, the likelihood is high that the records DOC holds may, even if redacted, contain information that the Sheriff’s investigation team is prohibited from seeing until its own investigation is complete; and the likelihood is high that such information could make its way back to the Sheriff’s investigation team if DOC releases its records before the Sheriff completes its investigation,” the sheriff’s office wrote in its motion to block release of the documents.
“Therefore, Thurston County Sheriff’s Office brings this action to preserve the integrity of its investigation.”
The court did not weigh in on the Sheriff’s Office argument about I-940, instead granting the motion to temporarily block release of the documents based solely on the exemption under the Public Records Act.
In the lawsuit, Thurston County Sheriff’s Office says its investigation will take two more months.
A hearing to discuss the motion for preliminary injunction is scheduled for Jan. 8. If granted, it would seal the documents until the Sheriff’s Office investigation is complete.
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