To decide if it should be made public, a Kanawha County judge will privately review a video that allegedly depicts a Western Regional Jail inmate getting hit with a grenade thrown by officers.
A lawsuit filed on behalf of inmate Shane R. Marcum asks Circuit Judge Joanna Tabit to require the state Regional Jail Authority to turn over photos, records and a video of an alleged incident between Marcum and correctional officers earlier this year.
Charleston attorney Paul Stroebel is suing the Regional Jail Authority and members of a "special-response team" over the alleged incident. Stroebel also filed a separate lawsuit claiming attorneys with the Regional Jail Authority didn't comply with all of the requests he made in a state Freedom of Information Act request.
Tabit ruled during a hearing Tuesday that the state has five days to give Stroebel all of the information, except the video, that he requested. Tabit wants the video provided to her within 10 days to watch privately. She will then decide whether it should be released.
Attorneys for the jail authority voluntarily handed over some of the information Stroebel requested, like incident reports from jail personnel and photographs of his client's injuries. Stroebel also asked that Marcum's medical records be provided.
State officials have offered Stroebel a copy of the video, but only if he agrees not to show it to anyone else, said Ben Freeman, an assistant state Attorney General.
State law allows information to be withheld that is "relating to the design of corrections, jail and detention facilities owned or operated by the agency, and the policy directives and operational procedures of personnel relating to the safe and secure management of inmates or residents that if released could be used by an inmate or resident to escape a facility, or to cause injury to another inmate, resident or to facility personnel."
Stroebel said he doesn't believe the video he wants -- which he has seen -- is exempt under the exception. Tabit said she will base her ruling on whether the video falls within the exception.
"This is the very type of information they're trying to hide, they're trying to sweep it under the rug," Stroebel said Tuesday. He said the video doesn't show enough of the facility to be a safety threat.
"It is a videotape of individuals walking down a hallway and they walk down a hallway and go through a door, go down another hallway and then you see them pull the pin on grenades and toss these grenades into an individual's cell. They pull another pin, toss the grenade into the cell, then they go in, hog tie the individual, then he's carried out, placed on a gurney, they roll him back out of the facility and they video tape the whole way out.
"They don't want it produced because it paints them in a terrible light -- it's awful," he said.
Marcum alleges he received severe burns from the grenades. He claims he was on the floor of his cell after getting into an altercation with two correctional officers when members of the special-response team threw a "flash bang grenade and a stinger grenade inside."
Marcum is one of three defendants indicted in connection with a slaying last year in Wayne County.
Stroebel represents Marcum and another inmate in separate lawsuits against the regional jail authority and members of its special response team. Those lawsuits allege the team is subjecting prisoners to cruel and unusual punishment.
Attorneys for the regional jails moved the lawsuits to federal court. Stroebel had filed them in Kanawha Circuit Court and both had been assigned to Tabit. It will be up to a federal judge to decide whether they should remain in federal court or go back to Tabit's court.
Reach Kate White at kate.white@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1723 or follow @KateLWhite on Twitter.