Release SBI report

It’s in the public’s interest for the State Bureau of Investigation to release its report examining the shooting death of junior Courtland Smith and the events surrounding it.

The public should be able to draw its own conclusions about whether Smith’s shooting was justified. We shouldn’t have to rely solely on statements of elected officials.

Under North Carolina law, records of criminal investigations conducted by public law enforcement agencies are not public records. Such records can be released by order of a “court of competent jurisdiction.”

Randolph and Montgomery County District Attorney Garland Yates said Friday in a statement that the officer who shot Smith was justified in his actions because he believed his and another officer’s life were threatened.

Consequently, Yates declared in his statement, “The District Attorney’s investigation into this matter is closed.”

This decision was made after Yates examined the SBI report and consulted with the agents assigned to the case and other witnesses.

We don’t know everything that was in the SBI report that brought him to his conclusion. And we don’t know all the details that the SBI dredged up in its investigation. Yates only summarized details surrounding Smith’s actual shooting.

This report has details that are of enormous importance to the UNC community.

One of our own, armed only with a BlackBerry, was shot by police. That fact alone shakes our confidence in the agencies that are sworn to protect us.

North Carolina law authorizes officers to use deadly force if they believe they are imminently facing the use of deadly force.

But we only have the DA’s conclusion that this force was necessary, and we don’t know any details the SBI report contains about the events that led up to the shooting.

We need that information so we can judge the entire situation ourselves.

And the official, complete record that presents those details in factual form is the SBI report.