The Star has moved to intervene in a lawsuit over access to body camera footage and other reports of two fatal police shootings.

The initial demand was presented on October 17 by the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas. The Board of Police Commissioners of the Kansas City Police Department is named as a defendant.

The Kansas City Police Department was hired to investigate two police shootings in Kansas City, Kansas. Jon Anderton, 50, was murdered in February 2023 and Amaree’ya Henderson, 25, was murdered in April 2023.

With those investigations concluded, Wyandotte County District Attorney Mark Dupree refused to press charges against the officers.

Lower Missouri Law of the sun, case files They are subject to open records requests once an investigation has been completed. Kansas’ open records law It is more strict.

The Star requested KCPD for case files in April and June.

In its lawsuit, the Unified Government maintains that KCPD’s use-of-force investigation records are the property of Kansas City, Kansas. Disclosure of the files to a third party, the argument goes, amounts to a breach of contract between the two agencies and would cause “irreparable harm.”

Platte County Circuit Judge Myles Perry on Oct. 22 granted a temporary restraining order preventing the records from being released until a hearing on November 6.

In a 27-page motion filed Wednesday, Bernie Rhodes, an attorney for The Star, says the Sunshine Law voids the contract between the two agencies and that the agreement itself says: “Dissemination of records will be in accordance with the laws of the State of the Agency that holds the records.”

The motion goes on to say that questions remain about the circumstances of both shootings and that denying the searches would be a violation of First Amendment rights.

“Public officials should know that The Star will fight their illegal efforts to withhold information from our readers,” said The Star executive editor Greg Farmer. “The big question here is: ‘What are they trying to hide?’ “We will do everything in our power to find out.”

The Unified Government did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent Wednesday.