Police video of Memphis officers beating Tyre Nichols to death has been key to criminal charges against the officers and renewed a nationwide debate over the need for reform.

At the same time, an investigation by News Channel Nebraska has uncovered a case of key police video disappearing.

The video involved a traffic stop with a a White Omaha officer pulling over a Black mom and her son, and then pulling a gun on the young man.

The video disappeared because authorities didn't "preserve" it, although they were told to keep it amid loud complaints of racial profiling.

[View our full video report above]

TRANSCRIPT: 

As we first reported, on this stretch of Interstate 80, near the Omaha-Sarpy County line, exactly 30 days following the suffocation of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer—a murder which sparked Black Lives Matter protests in Omaha and across the country— a White Omaha police officer pulled over a Black woman and her passenger, her 20-year-old son.

TRAFFIC STOP AUDIO, OMAHA POLICE: “First one is going to be for a Black female driving. Last name is Settles. Second one is going to be for a Black male, last name Kamara.”

According to city records, they were “following too closely.” Within moments after the stop the officer pulled his gun on the Black man, on that both sides agree—setting in motion accusations of racial profiling.

NCN’s Joe Jordan: "Were your clients, were they scared?

Adam Sipple, Family’s Attorney:  "Well of course they were scared. Especially when the officer pointed a gun at Mrs. Settles’ son, Elijah."

The entire stop was scary because they were driving in the flow of traffic just like anybody else. They were in the left lane but not following anybody too closely. So yes, it was a very scary event for both of them.

Eighteen months later in December 2021, the Omaha City Council put the controversial traffic stop and a federal lawsuit against the officer, Jeffrey Vaughn, in the rear-view mirror by unanimously voting to settle the case paying the woman and her son $42,500.

NCN’s Joe Jordan: "What we didn’t know back then but have since learned through an extensive and exclusive investigation by News Channel Nebraska is that the traffic stop was all recorded on the officer’s dashboard camera. But the family, and in all probability a federal court jury, never saw the video. Why not? Because the Omaha Police Department did not save the video."

NCN’s Joe Jordan: "That video no longer exists."

Sipple: “I’m not here to accuse anybody of anything but that recording was not preserved and available for my clients to use in pursuing their claim.”

And the city agrees. NCN filed a public records request asking for the video, but we were told, “No records exist. Your request has been closed.”

But according to police policy at that time, the video should have been saved.

OPD spelled it out in black and white. To “make certain of the integrity of evidence and related video documentation…uncategorized video will be retained for 120 days…non-evidence video will be retained 120 days.”

But on September 2, 2020—50 days before the 120-day deadline would expire—the family lawyer sent OPD a 2-page letter requesting “Evidence Preservation” noting, “Please immediately secure and preserve all recorded evidence of this encounter.”

Sipple: “In a situation where an allegation involves racial profiling and pulling of a firearm and pointing it at a young man you would think that an evidence preservation request coming from an attorney representing those people would be taken very seriously. I guess it wasn’t.”

NCN then filed a second public records request asking, “Why the video was not preserved?”

The city’s response, “There are no documents that address that issue.”

But the city did give the family an answer.

On March 3, 2021—six months after the family’s September 2nd letter asking that the video be saved, the city wrote, “Due to the delay in your client’s making a complaint the cruise footage was not retained.”

Sipple: "I can tell you that we didn't make a mistake. It’s not like I sent the letter the day before and they didn't act fast enough. They had six weeks to push a button and preserve that recording and it didn't happen."

Contacted by NCN a spokesman for the Omaha Police Department admits the mistake telling NCN that OPD “recognizes the failure to preserve the cruiser dash camera video.”

NCN’s Joe Jordan: By the way there’s more. Remember when Officer Vaughn called in saying “Black Female and Black Male.” Well, when Vaughn filled out the courtesy citation, before letting mom and son go, he wrote that the race of the woman was “White.”

Sipple: That kept the case, that kept the traffic stop out of the legislatively prescribed procedures that were implemented by Chief Schmaderer in his department to try to track racial profiling data so that it can be detected. If an officer writes down "White" then it's not going to be tracked in a statistical analysis. So, in this case police and city officials did just about everything they could to thwart my clients' efforts toward accountability, to shine a light on this, to discover the truth and hold people accountable.

OPD insists this was a “clerical error” by Vaughn, a one-off, and not a systemic problem within the department.

We asked for an on-camera interview with Chief Schmaderer to discuss all this, but were told our, “Request for an interview with Chief Schmaderer was not approved.”

OPD did tell us it has taken several steps to, “Ensure a similar issue does not occur in the future.” Those steps: equipping all canine units, such as Vaughn’s, with body worn cameras and keeping the video for four years after any incident.

But all that is too little too late for a Black mom and her Black son confronted by a White Omaha police officer.

NCN's Joe Jordan: This was a month after George Floyd.

CNN Video of George Floyd Arrests: “I’m going down, I’m going down.”

Sipple:  It all mixes together: their race, the fact that they were traveling in the flow of traffic, that they were the ones pulled out of traffic for no apparent reason, that the officer then asked her to get into his cruiser and that quickly followed with him pointing the firearm at her son. And so, all those things from the perspective of a person of color in America in June of 2020 is going to cause anybody concern.