belgiumpulse
Search
Image illustrating: Pasadena Police Department (editorial)
← International

Pasadena police release video of officer shooting colleague

Pasadena Police Department says it has released a critical-incident video from a September 7, 2025 shooting in its parking structure at 240 Ramona Street, where one officer was injured during what Chief Gene Harris described as unsafe conduct involving loaded firearms. The department says the officer has recovered, and that the release was delayed to protect investigative steps. The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office and Pasadena Police Department are still reviewing the incident. The case is not a Belgian story in any direct sense, but it is a compact example of a wider public-safety dilemma: video can make police incidents visible, while investigations and privacy rules can slow disclosure. For Belgium Pulse, the main relevance is comparative, not local: Belgium's own police zones and federal police have been expanding body-camera use under a different legal framework.

Belgium Impulse Editorial·13 June 2026·3 min read·6 sources
Key signal

The direct Belgian impact is minimal: this is a local United States police incident, not a Belgian or EU policy development. It may still interest Belgian public-safety officials, police unions, civil-liberties lawyers and readers who follow police accountability debates because it shows how a mature disclosure regime handles embarrassing footage involving officers themselves. For ordinary Belgian residents, the practical relevance is comparative: body cameras and dashcams do not automatically resolve trust questions; rules on timing, privacy and disciplinary follow-up matter.

Pasadena Police Department (municipal police force serving Pasadena, California) is the agency that released the video. Pasadena (city in Los Angeles County, California, known internationally for the Rose Bowl and Tournament of Roses Parade) is where the incident occurred. Ramona Street (central Pasadena street near civic buildings) is the location of the department parking structure cited by police. Gene Harris (Pasadena police chief) is the official who narrated the department's account of the incident. Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office (county prosecutorial authority for Los Angeles County) is reviewing the shooting alongside the department. California Assembly Bill 748 (2018 state transparency law on police critical-incident recordings) is the statute the department cites for releasing audio and video. California Government Code Section 7923.625 (current codification of the disclosure rule) sets conditions for withholding or releasing critical-incident recordings.

Background

California's Legislature approved AB 748 in 2018, and the bill text says critical-incident recordings may generally be delayed for 45 calendar days during an active investigation, with further delay requiring justification. The Pasadena Police Department says its June 2026 release was delayed to protect investigative steps after the September 2025 shooting. Research gives a cautionary backdrop: Lum, Koper, Wilson, Stoltz and Goodier's 2020 Campbell systematic review found mixed effects from police body-worn cameras on officer and citizen behaviour, making policy design and enforcement as important as the camera itself.

Why now

The story is timely because Pasadena Police Department released the critical-incident video on June 10, 2026, months after the September 7, 2025 shooting, citing the need to protect investigative steps before publication.

OIS Intelligence

What to watch

Watch for a Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office decision, any fuller Pasadena Police Department disciplinary disclosure, and whether additional records are released under California's public-records framework. The timing of those steps is not yet clear from the available official materials.

Opposing perspectives

  1. Pasadena Police Department / investigators

    Pasadena Police Department says the delayed release protected essential investigative steps while the case remained under review. That frame treats transparency as necessary but sequenced: video should be public, but not before witness statements, forensic work and internal review are far enough advanced to avoid compromising the record.

  2. California transparency-law framework

    California's AB 748 framework starts from the opposite pressure point: recordings of police shootings are public-interest material and should be withheld only under defined investigation or privacy exceptions. The strongest version of this frame is that public trust requires disclosure rules that do not depend solely on police discretion.

Sources & evidence