KSL, the Salt Lake Tribune, Fox 13 and ABC4 covered the federal suit four people filed this morning against the City of American Fork and thirteen of its officers. The city gave KSL one sentence and the Tribune none. Two pieces repeat the lawyers’ “Four Utah residents”; the complaint says one lives in Illinois. One puts the chief’s “we didn’t do this perfectly” in his video; the complaint puts it at a meeting months later. And KSL has the department’s account of how the unredacted footage got out.
AS REPORTEDThe five pieces as published on October 14, read the same day: KSL (Emily Ashcraft, 9:09 a.m.), the Salt Lake Tribune (Samantha Moilanen, 9:25 a.m., updated 12:05 p.m.), Fox 13 (Jeff Tavss, 9:59 a.m.), and ABC4 (Abigail Jones, by midmorning, and a second piece in the afternoon). Times are the pages’ own stamps, Mountain time.
CORROBORATEDKSL’s sentence on the footage, “accidentally released publicly on the American Fork Police Department’s Dropbox by an evidence technician,” matches the chief’s account in the complaint (¶ 29: an evidence technician, “a complete mistake”) and the department’s June statement that the release was accidental.
CONTRADICTED“Four Utah residents” (Fox 13 and ABC4, from the lawyers’ release): the complaint says Norcross “resides in Illinois” (¶ 6). Fox 13’s “video statement” for the chief’s “we didn’t do this perfectly”: the complaint places those words at a recorded meeting after an outside review, not in the May video (¶¶ 4, 145).
To KSL: “American Fork declined to make a comment on pending or current litigation.” To the Tribune: “The city and the police department did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday.” ABC4: “ABC4.com has reached out to American Fork Police Department for comment and is waiting to hear back.” Fox 13 did not report asking. The department’s position on the suit, on its first day, is the one it took in May: the 26-minute video and the release that called its officers’ conduct “limited to fulfilling our legal obligations and enforcing Utah law.”
Every quotation of an officer or of the chief in the five pieces appears in the complaint in the same words, and the sequence of the four days is the complaint’s. Two points do not hold. “Four Utah residents” is the lawyers’ phrase; the complaint says Norcross “is an adult who resides in Illinois,” and KSL and the Tribune said so. Fox 13’s “video statement” is the wrong room: the complaint quotes the May video for the department’s defense of its officers and the recorded meetings for the concessions, and the distance between the two is the complaint’s whole argument (the chief, graded point by point).
One sentence in KSL goes past the complaint and is worth keeping. The department has never said in its own name how the unredacted body camera files reached the open folder this site has worked from since June (July 11). The complaint reports the chief’s version at a meeting: an evidence technician put them in the public folder, “a complete mistake” (¶ 29). KSL states it as fact, and adds that the folder was the department’s Dropbox.
In fairness. Newsrooms wrote these within an hour of a 52-page filing, and three of the five were published before anyone had spoken at a podium; the two points above are the only ones found, and neither changes the story. The lawyers’ release said “Four Utah residents,” so the outlets that repeated it were quoting their source. Declining to comment on pending litigation is a defendant’s ordinary practice and implies nothing about the merits. The complaint’s allegations are untested; the officers and the city are presumed to have acted lawfully. The sixteen-year-old is not named anywhere.