After officer killed her daughter, Columbus mom fought for release of body-camera video
Four years after an Iowa police officer shot and killed her daughter, a Columbus mom is being honored this week for winning the struggle to publicly release the officer’s body-camera video.
Gina Colbert will be in Des Moines on Sept. 26 to receive a Friend of the First Amendment Award from the Iowa Freedom of Information Council.
“It’s hard to accept any congratulations for this,” Colbert, 62, told the Ledger-Enquirer in a phone interview. “It’s bittersweet.
“It’s been a long battle, and it still continues. … It’s a hell no one can imagine.”
On Jan. 6, 2015, police in Burlington, Iowa, responded to a 911 call about a domestic dispute at the home of Gabe and Autumn Steele, according to the The Hawk Eye newspaper.
Officer Jesse Hill and his partner answered the call.
Hill’s body camera video shows Hill running up to the couple while they argue in their yard. Their 3-year-old son can be heard crying and their dog, a collie and German shepherd mix, is barking and growling.
Hill told investigators he took “two or three steps” backward when the dog came at him, according to The Hawk Eye. He also said in a written report that the dog bit him in his thigh, the newspaper reported. The family says the dog wasn’t aggressive and didn’t bite him. The video doesn’t show what happened with the dog and the officer.
Hill fell into the snow and fired two shots intended for the dog, according to published reports. One bullet grazed the dog — and the other killed Autumn, her mother said.
Autumn was 34. In addition to her husband and son in Iowa, she is survived by her other son, who was 7 then and lives in Columbus with his father.
In the video, as a fellow policeman tends to Autumn in the blood-speckled snow, Hill worries aloud, “I’m f---ing going to prison.”
No criminal charges were filed. No disciplinary action was taken.
“He’s walked away scot-free so far,” Colbert said.
The search for answers
The family was left with countless unanswered questions.
“The city told us that we would have to sue them to get any information,” Colbert said.
It took three years for the family to see the video, released to them during the discovery phase of their wrongful death lawsuit against the city. They settled the case in June 2018 for $2 million.
It took Colbert “two or three months” to prepare herself to watch the video, she said.
“I had to take a lot of breaks,” she said. “Very emotional. … It was the hardest thing I ever had to do. I felt I owed it, though, to my daughter. I had to do this. I was her mother. I had to see it.”
But the family’s legal fight wasn’t finished. They still wanted the public to know what happened, beyond the 12-second video clip that was released in March 2015.
“To this day, Burlington leadership refuses to change the narrative, despite the public documents,” Colbert said, “so nobody learns any lessons.”
A federal judge ruled in August 2018 that the video and other documents must be publicly released. The Iowa Freedom of Information Council’s motion helped win the case.
“I’m thankful they did that,” she said.
Colbert also credits lawyers Dave O’Brien and Trent Henkelvig in Iowa and Adam Klein and Mark Shelnutt in Georgia.
The motivation
Randy Evans, the council’s executive director, praised Colbert.
“She drove to Iowa and spoke before a state board about the importance of gaining access to the video record of Autumn’s needless death,” Evans told the L-E in an email. “The room was eerily quiet after her impassioned speech.”
He called Colbert “a hero in the eyes of lots of Iowans who believe deeply in the importance of public access and public accountability whenever law officers take the life of a person, especially when that victim did nothing to warrant their death.”
Colbert deflected the praise.
“I’m just a mom fighting for justice,” she said. “… Here came this Georgia mom, this Georgia family, and we kind of turned things upside down and kept going when they didn’t think we would.”
Colbert still isn’t done fighting.
“There is a lot that has not been released publicly,” she said.
Asked what information still should be released, Colbert said she isn’t allowed to mention the documents because they are sealed.
The memories
In the avalanche of documents and legal maneuvers, Colbert hopes the oldest of her three children isn’t forgotten.
“We want to keep Autumn in the public eye,” she said. “We want to keep this in the news. We don’t want it to go away.”
Autumn was born and raised in Columbus. She graduated in 1998 from Kendrick High School, where she was an honor student and the drum major her senior year.
“She was a very popular girl,” said Colbert, who for more than 25 years ran her own business, Gina’s Junk, Thrift & Antiques off Buena Vista Road, until she closed it in 2015, when the store became too much to handle amid her grief.
Autumn worked as a dental technician in Columbus and Atlanta before marrying Gabe and moving to his hometown of Burlington.
“She had the most beautiful smile,” Colbert said. “That’s what people say. She was always smiling, a very jolly-type person, fun personality.”
Understanding that the release of the video has meant anyone with an Internet connection can watch her daughter die, Colbert explained why she persisted and sacrificed her family’s privacy for the public’s right to know.
“Because these people in these positions have to be held accountable,” she said. “The public deserves transparency from these people that are wielding this power over them. … You can’t hold anybody accountable without transparency.”
This story was originally published September 24, 2019 at 5:30 AM.
