TriMet has released video showing the doors of one of its MAX trains closing on the edge of a coat worn by a passenger as he apparently tried to reboard it, seconds before the train began to move, dragging the man along the train’s platform and tracks. He died 26 days later in the hospital as a result of his injuries.
The public transit agency had quietly settled a potential lawsuit over the man’s death for $830,300. It then declined to publicly release the video, which The Oregonian/OregonLive sought last month as part of a story delving into what happened and the agency’s plans to prevent such an incident from happening again.
That denial prompted the news organization to appeal to the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office. In an order signed by Chief Deputy District Attorney Adam Gibbs, District Attorney Nathan Vasquez ordered that portions of the video that showed Jonathan Ignatious Edwards III stepping off the train and then turning around to try to reboard the train as the doors closed on his coat were beneficial to the public’s interest in understanding what happened. Gibbs wrote that this overrode any privacy arguments made by TriMet, which had said the man’s family asked the agency not to release the video and public records law allowed it to shield the video from public viewing…