Mount Vernon can use video in disciplinary hearing against officer. What to know

The disciplinary case against a Mount Vernon police officer who shoved a female prisoner into a holding room can include video of the incident, a judge has ruled.

Ryan Hughes had fought the use of the video in his departmental hearing because it had been sealed along with other evidence when criminal charges against him were dismissed during his trial last year.

Why can the Mount Vernon police body cam video be used?

But Westchester County Judge Robert Prisco ruled that the hearing officer’s determination that the video could be used was not final and therefore was not subject to the judge's review. And even if it had been, Prisco ruled, it would have been allowed because the video has been in the public domain, published in lohud.com as well as on YouTube.

Hughes' lawyers had criticized the position of the city's prosecutor, William Wagstaff, that he was not looking to use the sealed evidence but rather versions that were readily available on the Internet. They argued the city shouldn't benefit from using sealed evidence that the city allowed to be "leaked onto the World Wide Web."

"A piece of evidence, though copied and existing elsewhere, is no less sealed from formal use in a disciplinaryproceeding than a piece of evidence that has no copy," lawyers Liam Castro and Steven Isaacs wrote in late January.

Dismissed: Case dismissed against Mount Vernon police officer on video pushing prisoner into cell

What does the body cam footage show?

The incident occurred Aug. 24, 2019, after the woman was arrested for allegedly stabbing her boyfriend. As Hughes led her down the hallway in the holding area at police headquarters he pushed her into the room and she tripped over a small garbage bucket.

Hughes' actions were captured on his own body-cam video as well as surveillance video mounted in the hallway.

Screenshot of Mount Vernon police Officer Ryan Hughes (in uniform) just before he pushed a handcuffed woman into a holding room at police headquarters on Aug. 24, 2019.
Screenshot of Mount Vernon police Officer Ryan Hughes (in uniform) just before he pushed a handcuffed woman into a holding room at police headquarters on Aug. 24, 2019.

Hughes was suspended in January 2020 when the new police commissioner reviewed the body cam footage. He was then arrested in June 2020 on a misdemeanor charge of second-degree reckless endangerment. At his trial in March 2022, a city judge dismissed the charge after the prosecution presented its case, agreeing that they had not presented sufficient evidence that Hughes "consciously disregarded" the risk that the woman might be injured.

The defense had argued that Hughes was unaware the garbage bucket was there and that he used the minimal force necessary to get the woman, who was intoxicated and pushing back against the officer, into the room.

Wagstaff is seeking Hughes' termination. Castro said Thursday that they were not "afraid of the video" but simply respecting the court's sealing order. He said the hallway video showed clearly that Hughes' actions did not rise to the level that he should lose his job.

Hughes, whose annual salary is $92,904, joined the Mount Vernon Police Department in 2013. He remains suspended, although he was restored to the payroll in early 2021.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Mount Vernon can use body cam video in hearing against officer