Peabody won’t share bodycam
Staff writer
Peabody city attorney Zach Strella has denied an open records request filed by the Marion County Record.
The request was for bodycam video from officer Eric Watts from the hours of 8:30 to 10 p.m. on Feb 8, 2025.
During that time, according to sources, Watts pulled over a girl who had made a U-turn on Walnut St.
The girl parked her car outside of the Hub, a local youth center.
A number of adolescents inside the Hub ran outside and shouted at Watts, after which the officer radioed for backup. Three more cars — two sheriff’s vehicles and a state trooper vehicle — quickly arrived at the scene, sources said.
The request for Watts’s bodycam footage was made so the public could have a better understanding of how many adolescents confronted Watts, what exactly the adolescents were doing, and why Watts thought it necessary to radio for backup.
“We were told 20 or 30 kids approached him and he was scared for his safety,” Joe Hutchison, a Hub board member, said. “I think it was more like five kids, and they were being loud.”
Strella said he rejected the request in part because the video “is part of an ongoing criminal investigation.”
He declined to say what kind of criminal investigation was ongoing.
No offense reports related to the incident have been released. Because radio communications with law enforcement officers in Marion County have been encrypted under orders from Sheriff Jeff Soyez, no independent verification of the incident is possible.