‘I want everyone to see what happened’: Mom wants video of NC police shooting son released
After hearing arguments from family and The Charlotte Observer on Wednesday, a judge this week is expected to grant or deny requests to release video of Pineville police confronting and killing Dennis Bodden.
Mecklenburg Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Carla Archie heard separate requests from the Observer and Bodden’s mother to publicly release video of Pineville police Sgt. Adam Roberts shooting Bodden three times — and Tasing him twice — following reports he’d stolen items from the Food Lion in Johnston Road Plaza.
The release, the Observer and Cleopatra Bodden argued, is imperative in upholding police transparency and accountability to the public.
“I am prepared for the full release,” Cleopatra Bodden told Archie, confirming that she had already seen the video. It was hard for her, she said, but it was important to share.
“I want transparency.” she continued. “I want everyone to see what happened. I want everything released.”
On May 14, Roberts was in uniform and working at another shopping center when he killed Bodden, a 46-year-old former attorney who had struggled with being bipolar and schizophrenic for years. In 2020, Roberts shot and injured another man in Pineville.
A police press release afterward described Bodden as a “chronic shoplifting suspect.” His family has said that he would go into the store thinking it was his home, and take items believing they belonged to him. Bodden was unarmed when Roberts shot him.
Before the shooting and as Roberts was following Bodden to try to arrest him, Bodden bit Roberts, according to reports.
“You ain’t getting away, bro,” Roberts told Bodden at one point, pushing his shoulder, according to a report issued by the district attorney.
The Observer’s attorney, Jonathan Buchan, told Archie that Pineville police “obviously sensed (the shooting) was a matter of public interest.” That’s proven by their own news release about the incident, he said.
District Attorney Spencer Merriweather also acknowledged public interest in the case when he published a letter sent to Charlotte-Mecklenburg police explaining why officers should not be charged in the shooting, Buchan argued.
That letter laid out some concerns about the incident, the Observer previously reported.
Pineville police said they had no issue with releasing the footage to the Observer — with a caveat.
Publishing the last eight minutes of video — which show Bodden dying on the grass as Roberts and a backup officer struggle to give him aid — would be “pure sensationalism,” said Scott MacLatchie, an attorney representing Pineville police. He asked that they be excluded from the released video.
But those last minutes could have recorded conversation among the officers about what just happened, Buchan argued. Just audio of the last eight minutes would be sufficient, he said, but it shouldn’t be altogether excluded.
What Pineville bodycam would show
Roberts was nearby when he heard reports of Bodden stealing from a Food Lion — again. He’d previously taken $12 worth of items, according to an affidavit.
Bodden was in a mental health crisis, his mother later said.
In the letter Merriweather sent to police, the district attorney said he agreed with the police department’s decision not to charge Roberts. But he also raised concerns about the validity of Roberts’ account of the shooting.
Roberts told dispatch that Bodden “has already tried to push off on me” even though body camera footage up to that point showed no “substantial contact” between them, Merriweather wrote.
The incident started in Pineville but was investigated by Charlotte-Mecklenburg police because Bodden walked from the Food Lion to an apartment complex in Charlotte. Homicide investigators at CMPD made the decision not to charge Roberts in the shooting, according to Charlotte-Mecklenburg police spokesperson Mike Allinger.
Merriweather concluded that at the moment before the shooting, Bodden was either reaching for the sergeant’s gun or a reasonable police officer could conclude that.
Bodden’s mother previously told the Observer she was upset by the decision to not charge Roberts.
“From the beginning I did not think that I would get a fair trial, and I did not,” she said. “They say they were independent. I don’t think they’re independent. They are all from Mecklenburg County.”
Her son previously worked as a senior attorney, from 2015 to 2019, at Mental Hygiene Legal Service in New York.
Public’s right to know
Cleopatra Bodden had her own hearing minutes after the Observer’s on Wednesday.
Her attorney, Micheal Littlejohn, asked that the police video be released with no redactions. He mentioned the fatal Illinois police shooting of Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old who called 911 to report a possible prowler, as an example of why the public needs to see such video.
After officers arrived in the Massey case, they asked her to move a pot of boiling water from the stove. She picked it up, and they moved away. They didn’t want to be near the steaming water, they said. “Oh, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus,” she responded, a video showed. An officer shot her three times as she lifted the pot near the sink.
A former deputy in the Massey killing is charged with first-degree murder.
Pineville police’s request for some footage to be left out of a public release seemed novel, Littlejohn said.
He pointed to another case he’s been involved in: Roberts’ shooting of Timothy Caraway in 2020, which spawned a lawsuit. There were no redactions when that petition for body camera footage was filed, Littlejohn said.
MacLatchie argued that was a different case with different circumstances because no one had died.
Bill Bunting, the homicide unit chief at the district attorney’s office, said he took no issue with footage being released to the Observer or Bodden’s family.
Archie said she expected to make a decision this week.
This story was originally published July 31, 2024 at 1:39 PM.
