Madison’s Indepedent Police Monitor has asked the Dane County Circuit Court to compel the Madison Police Department to produce evidence, including squad car video, in the police shooting death of Corey Ruiz.
After Madison police officer Kiel Baitinger-Peterson shot and killed Ruiz on July 22, the state Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) took over the investigation to determine whether Baitinger-Peterson’s actions constituted a crime, and Madison police turned over its evidence to DCI. IPM Aeiramique Glass requested the same evidence for her investigation, which would focus on whether Baitinger-Peterson acted within Madison Police Department policies, and whether any of those policies or training should be changed.
In a motion filed in Dane County Circuit Court Thursday, Glass alleges that MPD refused to provide her office with any evidence, offering “shifting and inconsistent justifcations” for why they couldn’t, initially claiming they didn’t have any records and later “asserting that state law prohibited disclosure.”
Glass issued a subpoena for the evidence on July 27 with a deadline of July 31. The motion filed Thursday alleges that the city and police department have “failed, neglected and refused to produce the subpoenaed records without lawful excuse or justification.”
Madison City Attorney Michael Haas has asserted that state law prohibits Madison Police from sharing records or evidence with any party as long as DCI’s investigation is open and ongoing.
The state law Haas has cited allows for an “internal investigation” of an officer-involved death as long as that investigation “does not interfere” with an outside criminal investigation.
In a memo distributed last week, Haas laid out a number of possible ways Glass’s investigation could interfere with the DCI investigation, including using DCI staff time to respond to records requests, and possibly tainting a potential jury pool by publicly releasing evidence.
However, Glass has requested records and evidence from MPD, not DCI, and has requested that evidence be shared with her office, not released publicly.
Haas told Madison365 in emails earlier this month that DCI has not asked the City to withhold evidence from the OIM, and has not told the City or MPD that sharing evidence with OIM would interfere with DCI’s investigation. A DOJ spokesman didn’t answer a question from Madison365 asking whether such sharing would impede DCI’s investigation, writing instead, “DOJ’s Division of Criminal Investigation is committed to protecting the integrity of each investigation.”
The Madison ordinance that created the Office of the Independent Monitor requires MPD to provide “unfettered access” to all records.
In a press conference on July 23, the day after the shooting, Madison Police Chief John Patterson said, “We are not going to let ‘open investigation’ be an excuse not to share.”
No hearing date on the matter has been set.
