SOUTH BEND — The 15-year-long court battle over the South Bend Police tapes case continues as the South Bend Common Council filed a Notice of Appeals to stop the tapes destruction after the St. Joseph Superior Court ruled the tapes were obtained illegally.
At-large Common Council member Oliver Davis announced June 24 the Council would appeal the decision.
“We are moving forward to ensure that the South Bend Police tapes are made available for the public,” Davis said in a press release. “As I previously stated, having the Truth is priceless.”
On May 28, Honorary Jamie Woods ruled the tapes, which are alleged to contain racist comments and discussion of illegal police activity, were recorded illegally and must be destroyed pending further appeals.
The saga came to light in winter 2011 after former South Bend Police Department communications director Karen DePaepe came across the voice of former Capitan Brian Young on the Voice Logger recording system as she was trouble shooting the technology, according to the court order.
According to the court order, what DePaepe heard on the recording system was conversations of something “potentially illegal.”
Young inherited line 6031, which had been recorded consentually under a previous officer who requested the line to be recorded due to threatening calls. The line had been recorded since 2005.
Under a longstanding practice of the department, officers lines were not to be recorded unless the officer requests it. Each year the chief of police is to review a list of lines recorded, and according to a court order, line 6031 remained on the list of recorded lines.
DePaepe kept this information to herself, according to the order. In March 2011, she told the late then-Chief of Police Darryl Boykins who then authorized her to continue recording the line, did not mention the recording to Young, nor did he initiate an Internal Affairs investigation, the order said.
The officers who had been recorded, Young, Tim Corbett, Steve Richmond and David Wells, have fought to block the release of the tapes and denied DePaepe’s allegations, according to previous Tribune reporting.
Email Tribune staff writer Juliane Balog at jbalog@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: South Bend Police Tapes case continues as Council appeals court ruling
Reporting by Juliane Balog , South Bend Tribune / South Bend Tribune
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By Juliane Balog , South Bend Tribune | USA TODAY Network
