Take Down Order
Cornerstone Security Group gets video wiped from the internet
Cornerstone Security Group — defendants in the wrongful death suit brought by the family of Freddy Nelson, Jr. — have filed yet another motion to redact documents submitted as evidence to the court.
The defendants complained that such evidence fed the publication of a video earlier this month, which “portrays Cornerstone in a negative light.” The company alleges that it has “been subjected to threats of violence, harassing telephone calls and emails, and a blizzard of negative online reviews from people outside of the area” because of the video. They further complained that the video has accrued “more than 5.7 million views,” including “an unknown number of potential jurors.”
The video is a concise, well-researched half hour piece which included bodycam footage from previous interactions between employees of the security company and Nelson, in addition to the horrific shooting incident. It paints a troubling picture of rent-a-cop cosplay and toxic power-tripping, colliding with a man who knew what his rights were, and consistently asserted them.
Now the video has been taken down, over Cornerstone’s copyright concerns.¹ The defendants lean heavily on their right to keep “proprietary” information (i.e. trade secrets) private.
Trade secrets such as their alarming directive to “Smile, be polite, be professional, BUT HAVE A PLAN TO KILL EVERYONE YOU MEET.”
There are no reviews on Google or Yelp since early August — positive or negative — so if we are to believe that Cornerstone actually received a “blizzard” of them, well, then they got Google to remove those, also.
Between these motions and other recent filings, it is clear that Cornerstone desperately wants to shift responsibility onto the deeper-pocketed defendants — TMT Development and Lowe’s — and even onto the victims in the case.²
The trial is set to begin after Labor Day, and is scheduled for three weeks.
¹ The producers of the excellent video did not respond to a request for comments.
² The defendant most culpable — in my well-informed opinion — remains TMT President/CEO Vanessa Sturgeon. Her’s was the still-unproved cry of “danger!” that set the entire mess into motion, and it was apparently her conflicting orders to lessee’s (Lowe’s), vendors (Cornerstone), and her own subordinates that created the actual danger. But-for indeed.
