‘Overly burdensome’: CCSD responds to lawsuit over school police bodycam footage
The Clark County School District responded this month to the American Civil Liberties Union’s lawsuit seeking body camera footage and records connected to a school police officer accused of slamming a Black student to the ground.
A video posted on social media in February shows an altercation near Durango High School in which district police Lt. Jason Elfberg appears to pull a Black student onto the ground and put a knee in his back.
The ACLU of Nevada announced in February that it was representing the students involved in the altercation. It also announced in March that it was giving the school district 30 days to release the records that it claimed to have requested on Feb. 21.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal also requested the incident report and any prior complaints against Elfberg, but the district refused to release any of the records. The district’s reason for denying the request was an ongoing investigation.
The ACLU filed a lawsuit in April, asking the District Court to force the school district to turn over the requested records “without delay” and pay for all costs and fees from the lawsuit.
The Clark County School District filed a response to the ACLU’s claims this month. The district called the ACLU’s request for internal communications “broad and overly burdensome,” saying that it returned over 10,000 records that would potentially match the request.
The school district also claimed that the ACLU did not explain “how internal records can benefit the public,” and accused it of seeking the information in the communications “for any potential lawsuit.”
It also said the ACLU does have privilege to the confidential “juvenile justice information” of its student clients. But the school district claimed that only the juvenile justice agency would be able to release those records, which include body camera footage, the incident report and citation.
The district also claimed in its response that it did not have some of the requested records, such as photographs, witness statements and discipline records.
A hearing in the case is slated for July 11.
Contact Mark Credico at mcredico@reviewjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @MarkCredicoII.
