Thread by @NickOchsnerWBTV

A bill was passed (nearly unanimously) in the dead of night that will greatly restrict access to death investigation records, including in-custody deaths. I teamed up w/ @_lucysherman & @KateReports to dig into why here's what we found #ncpol wbtv.com/2020/06/27/whi…

2/ @ncdhhs requested lawmakers make more death investigation records secret b/c, they said, some police agencies were reluctant to share records. But the Chief Medical Examiner couldn't provide a single actual example of when that has happened #ncpol

3/ in our interview yesterday, the Chief Medical Examiner claimed these records were already not public in the custody of OCME. I asked her to cite the statute supporting that. She couldn't. Later, a spokeswoman said there wasn't one #ncpol

4/ I asked the Chief Medical Examiner whether she acknowledged that this change would further restrict the public's access to records critical for law enforcement transparency. She said it wouldn't (our article lays out specific examples of how it would) #ncpol

Bottom line: @ncdhhs got lawmakers to pass a sweeping public records exemption literally in the dead of night. Nobody in either party questioned the change -- it was a unanimous vote. A reminder, again, that nobody in Raleigh cares about the public's access to info #ncga #ncpol