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January 31, 2007

More Station fire evidence to be released tomorrow

PROVIDENCE -- The Attorney General's Office plans tomorrow morning to release thousands of pages of previously secret grand jury testimony, witness statements and videos associated with The Station nightclub fire criminal investigation.

The release, which is expected at 9 a.m., follows a public records' request by The Providence Journal, The Associated Press and the Boston Globe.

Among the materials will be the nearly unprecedented release of 4,878 pages of grand jury testimony, 609 witness statements totalling 5,207 pages and seven videos -- including three shot by amateurs the night of the February 2003 blaze, three videos of bands that played in The Station before the night of the fire, and one police crime scene video.

The blaze, one of the worst in the state's history, killed 100 people and injured more than 200.

All of the materials will be edited for privacy and sensitivity, according to the Attorney General's Office, which will release the evidence to the media on computer hard drives. The grand jury testimony will also be posted on the attorney general's Web site.

The attorney general will not release a video shot by a Channel 12 camera operator at the West Warwick club that night, even though Lynch had planned to do so.

"We were prepared to release the Channel 12 video, but we had a conversation with a lawyer for the [TV] station's parent company, and he specifically asserted the copyright privilege, and we thought it wise to respect that privilege," Lynch spokesman Michael J. Healey said last week.

-- projo.com staff writer Steve Peoples with reports from Journal staff writer Paul Edward Parker

Posted by Steve Peoples  at 5:19 PM | Permalink

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