Police release footage of officials' verbal dispute at Saratoga Springs City Hall
By: Saratoga Springs Police -- releasing body camera and surveillance footage of a heated dispute right in city hall Thursday afternoon -- between the mayor and the deputy commissioner of public safety, Jason Tetu.
In the video, the mayor says that his family was threatened -- and insinuates that he expected the public safety officials to do more to help him.
The police department reports that at this time, no criminal charges are pending in connection with this fight -- and their investigation into it was closed.
Interestingly enough -- the time on that video places this dispute at about 1:30 in the afternoon.
That's just an hour before all three of these men participated in the rescheduled city council meeting, to complete business from the meeting that had to end early due to a Lives Matter protest.
We have reached out to Mayor Ron Kim for comment.
He didn't answer our call, so we left a message.
In a statement to the Times Union, he apologizes for how he reacted.
We've also reached out to the deputy commissioner and public safety commissioner Jim Montagnino. He was the third man you saw in that video, stepping in between the mayor and the deputy commissioner.
Montagnino claims the lieutenant who captured the video you just saw did not activate his body camera until after he heard the mayor pounding on the glass of the office door and then shoving on it.
You can see the mayor knocking from the surveillance camera angle.
Montagnino then went on to downplay the threats he says the mayor received.
"Mayor Kim allowed hours of curses and threats against me during city council meetings but then goes crazy when someone emails, ‘just resign. It will be better for you in the end.’
Somehow that, including hangup calls his son got in NYC, equals a threat on his and his family’s lives that justifies police intervention."