I got a call back from Mission City Manager Julio Cerda today, saying he couldn’t say more than the city attorney could about the public information law-violating fiasco his city has wandered into.

The tape was released, shouldn’t I be satisfied?

Well, picked up my copy today, and I’m not.

First, the tape is not from the car that pulled Saenz over for making an unsignaled lane change. It is from a second car, which arrived at the scene to transport Saenz to Mission PD.

Second, what I was given contradicts the probable cause affadavit filed by the PD’s investigator.

According to the official complaint, Officer Jerald Perez pulled Saenz over, administered a field sobriety test, “then placed Saenz under arrest and transported him to Mission Police Department…”

It’s not an enormous discrepancy, but it’s a discrepancy nonetheless. Officer Perez is either the man who pulled Saenz over that night, or the one who brought him to the PD. I suspect that this video is from a second officer, meaning that Mission did not quite turn over what I asked for.

Technically, I requested “the ‘dashboard cam’ video tape of Jose Eduardo ‘Eddie’ Saenz being arrested on Sept. 22, 2007 by Officer J. Perez.”

Christopher Davis’ original request asked for “any and all videos or video recordings” under his list of documents “referring to or relating to any arrest of Jose Educardo Saenz, a/k/a Eddie Saenz…”

Unless I’ve missed that second video stream showing Perez pulling over Saenz, I’m not satisfied. And it makes me suspect that perhaps it’s not a case of Saenz trying to keep a lid on the tape. Maybe Mission’s officer didn’t act in a video-friendly manner. Who knows.

Next up: More information requests and calls, and more going over the DVD for any possibility I’m missing something. Stay tuned.

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