Stoddard County sheriff fined $6K over withheld video of dog killing

BLOOMFIELD — Stoddard County Sheriff Carl Hefner has been found guilty of knowingly violating Missouri’s open records law in failing to release law enforcement body camera footage in the 2003 killing of a dog by a deputy sheriff.

Judge Wade Pierce found that Hefner’s defense — safety/security took precedence over the records request — was an attempt to hide what happened. Hefner has been fined more than $6,000.

Pierce stated that Hefner had knowingly violated the Sunshine Law request and “actively sought to hide the apparent disturbing actions of one of his deputies in order to avoid an apparent public outcry and systemically sought to thwart the efforts of the plaintiff to obtain video of the incident, regardless of the reason it may have been sought.”

Hefner and the department’s custodian of records Amy Holden are defendants in a civil matter that was filed by Oliver Law Firm regarding the department’s refusal to release information related to the killing of a dog in 2023.

Following an angry public outcry of the dog’s owners — Bryan and Tylla Pennington — a civil suit was filed against the Stoddard County Sheriff’s Office. That matter has not yet gone to court. However, following the filing of the lawsuit, the Pennington family’s attorney, Russ Oliver ,filed a request for all official call logs on the day of the incident, as well as requesting any body camera video footage that may have been recorded during the incident.

That request was not fulfilled and formed the basis of this most recent case. In his filing, Oliver claimed the legal standard had not been met by the Sheriff's Office, and he suggested the department was suppressing the evidence in order to control the public narrative regarding the situation.

Pierce stated that Hefner had knowingly violated the Sunshine Law request.

“It further appears from the evidence that defendant Hefner’s decision to forestall release of the video was likely also designed to delay pursuit of a civil claim against the County, the Sheriff’s Department, his Deputy, or himself,” Pierce said. “The sequence of events described in the testimony and shown by the exhibits, together with the months-long delay in providing the requested video, reveal a knowing violation of the Act.”

Pierce went on to rule that Hefner must pay a civil penalty in the amount of $500 and $817.50 for deposition fees. Additionally, Pierce ruled Hefner must pay $5,000 in attorney fees that were being sought by Oliver Law Firm. In total, Hefner is ordered to pay $6,317.50.

Oliver, who filed the lawsuit, is the former Stoddard County prosecuting attorney and said he wasn’t necessarily surprised by the ruling.

“Typically, there are certain law enforcement goals that do need to be preserved during an investigation,” Oliver noted. “In this situation, portions of information were withheld to keep the public from getting upset. It wasn’t withheld because of the investigation. A victim of a crime has a vested interest in knowing what happened.”

Oliver said this most recent ruling should be helpful in the pending litigation he has filed against the Stoddard County Sheriff’s Department.

“I think this is a very important case, because it’s important that the Sunshine Law be exercised and enforced,” Oliver remarked. “The Sunshine Law is what keeps us from being a banana republic where the government can just do what they want with no accountability. Transparency is very important and is essential to our representative democracy.”