A stalemate between city officials in Saratoga Springs and the Saratoga County District Attorney over the investigation into a November shootout on Broadway continues.
There have still been no meetings between members of the Saratoga Springs city council and Saratoga County District Attorney Karen Heggen after the Republican DA sought a temporary restraining order barring members of the council and city employees from discussing the November 20th shooting with the press.
The gag order came three days after Mayor Ron Kim and Public Safety Commissioner James Montagnino shared police and security camera footage of the incident with reporters just hours after it occurred.
Three people were injured in the shooting. No one was killed.
The DA contends the officials may have compromised the criminal investigation by sharing footage and information.
The city was set to provide its case in court on Thursday. Prior to the scheduled appearance, an attorney for the DA on Tuesday wrote to the city attorney offering a way to avoid litigation by having leaders accept a request that councilors follow the city police department’s own media policy.
The offer was refused.
During a Thursday press conference with the mayor, Commissioner Montagnino reiterated that the information was shared in the interest of transparency.
“There’s nothing whatsoever inappropriate in the proper set of circumstances, such as we had on the morning of November 20th, where social media was already abuzz with conspiracy theories and wrong information, the appropriate thing to do is what the mayor and I did,” said Montagnino.
The officials continued to assert Heggen’s initial restraining order was unconstitutional.
Speaking with WAMC, Heggen disagreed.
“I would never do anything that I believed was unconstitutional,” said Heggen.
Heggen said she was advised by private counsel that she hired last week – after the council hired its own lawyer in the matter – that it would be appropriate to release the three members of the council who have complied with the terms of the TRO.
While withdrawing the original TRO in what she describes as a gesture of good faith toward reaching a solution, Heggen filed a new action on Thursday directed solely at Kim and Montagnino.
“This new action, this Article 78, is directed at the two actors that continue to talk about evidentiary matters in the public and so that is why I did it,” said Heggen.
Montagnino says releasing information about the shooting of an off-duty Rutland, Vermont sheriff’s deputy by city police after a confrontation with a group of unidentified individuals was appropriate.
“The District Attorney is pretending that somehow by our releasing the minute or two of video footage and answering some questions, that her investigation has been compromised. This wasn’t the infiltration into organized crime by undercover operatives, it was nothing of the sort. It was a violent crime that was recorded on high-definition video by about half-a-dozen different cameras. It’s not whodunit,” said Montagnino.
Heggen’s new filing seeks a gag order on Kim and Montagnino for 60 days or until the shooting incident is reviewed by a grand jury.
With no arrests in the November shooting yet made, Kim — a former public safety commissioner — asked what’s taking so long.
“What is happening in the DA’s office that where just…there haven’t been any arrests, there have been no actions. All the actions have been in civil court to basically gag separately elected officials who have a responsibility to the public,” said Kim.
Heggen maintains her door remains open.
“There’s a way to resolve this and the first step of that is having conversations. And I’m saddened that no one has picked up the phone, sent me an email, written me a letter, done none of those things to try and resolve this case,” said Heggen.
