Police video of shooting kept sealed

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Police thought student had a gun

The UNC-Chapel Hill fraternity president shot to death by an Archdale police officer this summer reached for his pocket, leading the officer to think he was going for a gun, according to an autopsy report released Thursday.

The report says Courtland Benjamin Smith, 21, had told friends in Chapel Hill that he was thinking about suicide sometime before he climbed into his Toyota SUV early on Aug. 23 and headed west.

Smith, a junior biology major from Houston, called 911 as he drove through Guilford County on Interstate 40 and requested help, saying he was armed with a handgun and considering suicide. The dispatcher kept Smith talking, trying to get him to describe where he was.

Media sue for video of police shooting

Five media organizations including The News & Observer are going to court to get a police video recording of the traffic stop in which a UNC student was shot to death last week. The organizations also are asking for an unedited version of the student's 911 call.

Courtland Benjamin Smith, 21, was shot by an Archdale police officer after being stopped on Interstate85 just before 5 a.m. Aug. 23. Smith had dialed 911 as he drove west at a high speed. He told a dispatcher that he was trying to kill himself, that he had been drinking and that he had a 9mm handgun. Authorities still haven't said publicly whether he had a gun.

At least one of the two police cars on the scene was equipped with a dashboard video camera. A Randolph County assistant district attorney had a judge seal the recording Aug. 25.

A picture still wrongly hidden

The following is an editorial from the News & Record of Greensboro.

A few days after his 21-year-old son was shot and killed by an Archdale police officer on Interstate 85 in Randolph County, Pharr Smith expressed understandable frustration.

"We do continue to have faith in the system," he wrote in an e-mail obtained by WRAL-TV of Raleigh. "We just wish some of the balancing facts could be released to give people a clearer picture of how all this unfolded."

Judge to review shooting video

A Randolph County Superior Court judge will view the videotapes surrounding the recent fatal police shooting on Interstate 85 of a UNC-Chapel Hill student.

V. Bradford Long, a senior resident Superior Court judge, asked Friday that copies of the dashboard camera videotapes from two Archdale police cars be turned over to him so he can determine whether to release them to the public. His request came after Long heard a motion filed by media outlets to allow the release of the tapes that may have caught an Archdale police officer opening fire on Courtland Benjamin Smith. Long said he may have a decision by the end of next week.

"I think a court has to proceed this way," Hugh Stevens, an attorney representing The High Point Enterprise, said of Long's decision to view the tapes. "When you have sealed a record [or] document of this sort, the only way the court can meaningfully decide its status, it seems to me, is to look at it, and make a decision."

Judge: Press can't have video from fatal police shooting of UNC student

A judge has ruled that police do not have to release video from the Archdale police cruisers involved in a traffic stop that ended in a UNC student's shooting death in August.

Randolph County Superior Court Judge Vance Bradford Long concluded that the court does not have the authority to release the footage, which includes portions of the incident in which Courtland Benjamin Smith was shot and killed.

Two officers responded to a 911 call Aug. 23 of a man driving drunk on Interstate 85 at high speed, armed with a handgun and reporting that he was suicidal. The officers stopped the car at exit 108 off the interstate. An altercation ensued, and officer Jeremy Flinchum shot and killed Smith.