Judge orders Sheriff's Office, newspaper to reach agreement over release of jail video
LAKE MARY, Fla. - The legal teams representing newspaper Florida Today and the Brevard County Sheriff's Office have been ordered by a judge to consult one another and "work together" towards releasing a version of a controversial jailhouse video recording.
The video shows the highly charged incident involving former Army veteran Gregory Edwards while in the Brevard County Jail.
Corrections deputies had to use extreme physical force trying to subdue him and he died soon after. That was in December of 2018.
Edwards had been arrested for violently attacking a volunteer at a toy drive, which his family described as a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) episode.
The newspaper sued the Sheriff's Office to make the video public. A judge heard compelling arguments -- the paper contending that the public has a right to know and the Sheriff's Office saying that the video shows confidential details about the jail.
The judge has given both sides until mid-November to collaborate on an edited and redacted version.
Video experts for both sides must now look at hours of footage and produce a copy that can show the altercation and what led up to the incident while keeping the jails security secrets out of the public eye.