Update: On Thursday, Special Superior Court Judge Matthew Houston ruled that there is no “compelling public interest” to release body-camera footage of the botch raid. More below.

On Tuesday, the Raleigh Police Department asked a judge to block the release of body-camera footage from the botched raid of Amir and Mirian Ibrahim Abboud’s home in April 2021. On Thursday, the judge obliged.

According to court records, an RPD SWAT team “suddenly and without warning, broke and busted open the Abbouds’ front door with a battering ram, pointing their long, AR-styled firearms at Mr. Abboud, Mrs. Abboud, and their 11-month-old son.” Though the search warrant was ultimately based on mistaken identity—State Bureau of Investigation agents confused Abboud with a neighbor who is also of Arab descent—the police refused to pay for the damage, court records show. 

In February 2023, the Abbouds filed a complaint against the SBI with the state’s Industrial Commission—which decides negligence claims against state agencies—alleging that the SBI errors caused the Abboud family “to experience severe emotional distress and trauma” and their infant son “severe trauma and developmental issues.” 

In December 2023, along with The Assembly and the INDY, they also sued the city to force the release of the SWAT team’s body-camera footage. According to the complaint, filed by the UNC School of Law’s Civil Legal Assistance Clinic, Raleigh police “wrongfully executed a ‘Quick Knock’ warrant”—meaning they kicked in the door before the Abbouds had a chance to open it—“terrorizing them and their child.” The complaint said the Abbouds hope releasing the footage will “provide the public with relevant information about the operation of a government-funded police force.”

Taxpayers have paid millions of dollars to equip police with body cameras, UNC law student Jack Salt told Special Superior Court Judge Matthew T. Houston during Tuesday’s hearing, which was held remotely. Withholding the footage “defeats the purpose,” he said.  

Under state law, body-cam footage is not a public record. But judges can release footage if they deem it necessary to “advance a compelling public interest.” 

While numerous media outlets—including The Assembly, INDY, The News & Observer, WRAL, Rolling Stone, and Radley Balko’s The Watch—have reported on the RPD’s controversial use of “quick-knock” warrants, the RPD argued in court filings that the Abbouds’ request did not meet the “public interest” standard. 

The RPD pointed out that an attorney for the Abbouds had released home security footage of the raid online, which the police said made releasing the body camera footage redundant. At the same time, the RPD claimed that releasing the body camera footage might expose confidential information about search warrant execution or damage officers’ reputations. 

At Tuesday’s hearing, RPD attorney Sherita Walton told Houston—who was appointed by Senate leader Phil Berger last year—that the Abboud raid was “valid on its face” and insisted that none of the officers did anything wrong. Walton said releasing the footage would be “dangerous.” (The SBI also asked Judge Houston to withhold the footage.) 

As precedent, Walton pointed to a 2022 case in which a Wake County judge refused to release footage of the botched RPD raid of Yolanda Irving’s home in 2020. 

But in an email to Houston after the hearing, UNC Civil Legal Assistance Clinic director Elizabeth Simpson pointed out that the judge only denied the request “at this time” because the Irving family had yet to see the footage. In addition, Simpson said that multiple media outlets had not joined the Irving family in seeking the footage, as The Assembly and INDY had done in this case. 

Simpson also disputed the RPD’s claim that there was no misconduct: “The officers did engage in unlawful conduct by entering the home simultaneously with their announcement. North Carolina law requires ‘Knock and Announce’ for warrant execution.” 

Simpson also implored Houston to reject the RPD’s suggestion that footage should only be released following incidents involving fatalities or serious injuries, citing a unanimous NC Supreme Court decision from December 2002: “History teaches us that opaque decision-making destroys trust; recent history involving police body cameras emphasizes this risk,” wrote Justice Robin Hudson, a Democrat who has since retired. 

Houston responded that he would “be in touch in short order.” Two days later, the judge ruled there is “no compelling public interest” to release the body-cam footage. If the search warrant was faulty, Houston reasoned, the raid was “without inherently noteworthy or distinguishing circumstances or characteristics” and therefore not “of particular public interest.”  

The UNC Civil Legal Assistance Clinic said in a press release that it was shocked at the judge’s decision. 

“We believe this to be a blow to transparency and accountability to the public,” the release stated.

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