(Credit: Steve Thurston, 2022)
Saratoga Springs Mayor Ron Kim, left, and Commissioner of Public Safety James Montagnino speak a press conference Dec. 22, 2022.
Speaking for the first time with reporters about any information regarding the gunfight in Saratoga Springs on Nov. 20, Saratoga County District Attorney Karen Heggen said she purposefully did not move to continue the temporary restraining order that she had won against the city of Saratoga Springs the day before Thanksgiving.
“I have decided on my own to not seek…a renewal or a new Temporary Restraining Order,” Heggen said. “I think that again this is something that could be resolved amongst the parties if the other side would come to talk to me, but I have not had any substantive conversations with anyone from the city.”
She said her office has written at least two letters asking to speak with officials, and she referenced a decision the city had made earlier this month to reach out to the DA's office to come to terms over how to handle discussions around the gunfight that included three police officers and wounded three people.
Heggen has asked that people in City Hall follow the current rules for media engagement set up by the police department.
“Her overtures have been, in essence, ‘I’m willing to talk as long as you’re willing to capitulate’,” Commissioner of Public Safety James Montagnino wrote in a text regarding the letters. “She insisted that the city council choose to bind itself to the police department’s media policy, which is completely inapplicable to elected officials.”
The next step for the district attorney then has been to work with outside counsel and submit an Article 78 lawsuit in Saratoga County Supreme Court asking that the mayor and the commissioner of public safety refrain from continued release of materials that could be considered evidence in the ongoing investigation of the gunfight. They have 20 days to respond.
The TRO and the Article 78 lawsuit stem from release of police body camera footage of the gunfight less than 12 hours after the fight occurred and while the street was still cordoned off as an active crime scene. The video shows police confronting two armed men. After calls to drop weapons, three police officers on the scene fired their weapons.
Commissioner of Public Safety James Montagnino and Mayor Ron Kim released the video during a press conference at 1 p.m. Nov. 20.
“It was highly unusual that that occurred,” Heggen said of the video release. It’s a unique situation brought on by the unique form of government that Saratoga Springs has. The elected commissioners are also head administrators of their departments. Montagnino and Kim had the access to the evidence and the ability to release it in a way that no other civilian could, Heggen said.
“Both the public safety commissioner nor the mayor are law enforcement people, and yet, they have chosen to direct those who are in law enforcement to provide what constitutes evidence in an ongoing criminal matter,” she said. The law enforcement personnel had to release it, Heggen added, because they have to respond to the administrator who runs the department.
During her time with the press, Heggen was firm that allowing the TRO to run out was not an act of capitulation, though her legal counsel had suggested that the Article 78 was the better course.
Heggen’s discussion with reporters came in the wake of a separate press conference held by Kim and Montagnino earlier today.
“District Attorney Heggen has given up on her unconstitutional gag order,” Kim said, adding, “I’m glad that District Attorney Heggen has seen the error of her ways.”
This is not how Heggen saw the situation, and she still believes that the two men have been behaving recklessly and that they did not have a First Amendment right to share the video.
The Article 78 lawsuit she submitted names only Montagnino and Kim as defendants. She said that the original TRO which covered almost all individuals working in City Hall was broad because she was not sure who might be releasing more materials, adding that Kim and Montagnino have been leading in this situation.
The Article 78 lawsuit seeks two primary goals: to immediately prohibit “Respondents from...reviewing or examining Evidence and information related to an ongoing grand jury investigation into the circumstances of a police-involved shooting” and stopping the commissioner and mayor from “causing or directing the release of Evidence and information related to the Investigation that may be within the direct or indirect custody or control of the SSPD," city officials or others who work in their departments. It also prohibits the defendants from offering public commentary for 60 days or until the grand jury has heard the evidence.
Montagnino and Kim have maintained that they had the right and that the city needed to see the police acting appropriately as rumors were building on social media.
“The appropriate thing to do was what the mayor and I did: release a very brief, very short selection of video evidence to the public to demonstrate to the public that our police officers acted bravely, courageously and in complete accordance with their training.”
“Why do police have body cameras?” Montagnino asked rhetorically, adding that one reason goes beyond gathering evidence for the police. “Body cameras exist for accountability and transparency.”
Body cameras and street light cameras are the property of the city, not the police or the district attorney, he said.
Despite two discussions with officials today, little more was offered about the case itself.
Heggen said that discussing names of individuals is premature as any of the people involved might be victims of crime and therefore have some rights to privacy at this point. Montagnino declined further comment during the press conference on most details related to the gunfight.
The mayor suggested in the press conference today that the District Attorney should focus more on bringing charges and less on civil lawsuits.
"I'm not going to try this case in the press," she said. Heggen did not disclose when, if at all, charges will be brought or an arrest will be made.