Quote:

---

Why Won't OHP Release Dashcam Video?
www.newson6.com/Global/story.asp?S=10518670

The Oklahoma Highway Patrol is refusing to release a copy of their dashcam video of the incident between a state trooper and paramedic saying it isn't their practice to do so, and that the video isn't covered by the Oklahoma Open Records Act.

Tulsa Attorney Doug Dodd is an expert on media law including the Open Records Act.

"It says that everything is open to inspection under the Open Records Act, unless it is specifically exempted. Except when it comes to law enforcement records," said Tulsa attorney Doug Dodd.

Instead in Oklahoma, there are seven different categories that law enforcement must make available to the public. They are mostly things like arrest and booking reports and details about arrest warrants.

But, it doesn't include anything about dashcam video which Dodd says probably wasn't even thought of when the measure was passed.

"I can almost guarantee you that the legislature and the governor back in 1985, did not envision dash board cams," said attorney Doug Dodd.

Dodd says the video could be obtained through litigation by some of the parties involved in the incident. Also, an elected official could ask for an attorney general's opinion in the case.




EMT Wants Accountability From OHP
www.newson6.com/global/story.asp?s=10520809

White says even when flattened against his ambulance, he was worried about the patient in the back. It was a woman suffering from possible heat exhaustion whom he and his partner were taking to a hospital.

"The word that comes to mind is absolute torture for a mother to be strapped to a gurney with an IV, an EKG and oxygen cannot move and she is hearing her family members scream outside that had to be torture. She did not deserve that," said White.

Nor does he feel he or his partner, Paul Franks, deserved the treatment they received from Trooper Martin.

"Never in my lifetime have I seen that kind of focused rage before," said Maurice White. "If a trooper behaves that way with a fellow professional and a professional who is transporting a patient with chest pain how does that trooper handle other situations?"

White also wants to see OHP's dashcam video. It is the video the patrol has refused to release after first saying it showed the paramedics starting the scuffle.

"The dashcam video will show his state of rage when he exited his vehicle to speak to my driver. It will show his total disregard for the patient when he was informed we were transporting a patient and when it was asked if we could take this up at the hospital, it will show his total disregard. And, it will show a trooper at that moment who was totally out of control," said White.

White's lawyer, Richard O'Carroll, told The News On 6 that he will get the dashcam video, but it will take a lawsuit to do so which means there could be a civil lawsuit in the future.

---

Quote:

---

"This is a man that has been in law enforcement for 15 years. He just got back from Iraq — got back in April of this year after a year tour of duty for the U.S. Navy," said attorney Mark James, who came to the defense of his client Trooper Daniel Martin, at a press conference Monday afternoon.

Since the ambulance was not running its lights or siren, James said that Martin had every right to pull over the Creek Nation EMS ambulance on May 24.

"An Oklahoma highway patrolman, under all circumstances, has the right to make a traffic stop. He has a right to make a traffic stop on an ambulance that is not running code, because it is nothing more than any other vehicle," he said.

The investigation into the traffic stop concluded last week and no charges were brought against Martin or White, but Martin is looking at the possibility of a lawsuit from White's attorney.

White was not arrested for resisting arrest or failure to yield to the trooper's vehicle because if White were taken off duty Okfuskee County would have been left without a paramedic.

"Whether it's right or wrong, that is what a district court of Okfuskee County is for, let those people decide whether or not this was a lawful arrest," James said.

Martin has been on administrative leave since June 1, James said, and he requested the leave to stay at home and be with his children after his family received numerous threats.

www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,526495,00.html

---