The Ada County Sheriff’s Office must release the initial seconds of body camera footage from a 2024 shooting that killed Deputy Tobin Bolter under a new opinion from the Idaho Supreme Court.
A few months after the shooting death of Deputy Tobin Bolter during a traffic stop in Boise, a local citizen filed a public records request for his body cam footage.
After the Ada County Sheriff’s Office denied his request, Garth Gaylord sued in civil court, saying Sheriff Matt Clifford “may be hiding something.”
Gaylord said the release of the footage would also “contribute to the public’s understanding of government operations and activities” and “the understanding of the heart of what a police officer may go through when enforcing codes or whatever, as actually seeing someone get harmed or killed may move a viewer in a different way than just hearing a report about it.”
The district court eventually ruled the video must be made public after a judge reviewed the footage himself.
The judge said its release would not be an invasion of privacy for Bolter’s surviving family because his injuries weren’t visible, his voice was not audible and nothing in the footage impugned his character.
Clifford later appealed.
During oral arguments earlier this year, an attorney for Clifford said the entire recording should not be considered public because Bolter could no longer be considered a public employee once he was shot.
At that moment, he “became Tobin Bolter, patient, and ultimately, murder victim.”
The Idaho Supreme Court unanimously agreed the recording is a public record since Bolter was on duty and the footage “contains information relating to the job performance of government employees.”
But justices wrote only the first 37 seconds showing the initial traffic stop up to the gunshot and the final few minutes after the body cam had been removed from his uniform could be released.
They said the rest of the 13-minute recording showing law enforcement and a bystander rendering aid to Bolter should remain private for his widow’s sake.
“The family has a privacy interest in this segment insofar as it captures the moment Deputy Bolter was shot; however, such interest is limited because the segment does not actually show the impact of the shooting on Deputy Bolter or his suffering,” justices wrote.
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