ZACHARY - An attorney weighed in on issues with the body-cam footage provided to WBRZ after a months-long investigation into how Zachary Police handled a drunken-driving crash involving a Baton Rouge police officer.

In March, Officer Loren Gaskin totaled his unmarked BRPD unit when he collided head-on with another car. BRPD gave him a 40-day suspension, six months without a unit, and one year of increased drug and alcohol testing. 

He had several types of alcohol inside at the time and we later uncovered he had been drinking.

It has been difficult to get answers from Zachary concerning why they did not do any alcohol-related tests on Gaskin at the scene of the crash.

The department did finally provide The Investigative Unit with body camera video from responding officers we requested in June.

However, the video is unusable. 

The "slight blur" Zachary Police applied, which they say is used to protect "sensitive" information, makes it impossible to see anything going on in the video. 

"By editing it to the point where we can't see what's on the video, it almost feels like the concealment of evidence," said attorney Franz Borghardt. 

Like us, Borghardt questions the reasoning behind the decision to edit the video.

"If ultimately they aren't going to prosecute and it's accessible by the public records law, it begs a lot of questions."

When we asked ZPD to provide the specific statute within the public records law they believe gives them the right to apply the blur, they replied with an exception citing an individual's right to privacy.

"There's no expectation of privacy with regard to law enforcement officers doing their job. Now, if they get on the phone with a family member, then yes they have an expectation, but if they're in the field in an investigation with a suspect, an accused individual doing wrong, I don't think they have an expectation of privacy."

While there's no video to tell us what happened that night, there is some audio, and it proves responding officers were definitely questioning Gaskin's sobriety and asking why he had alcohol in his unit. You can listen here.

"The other level of transparency is, we want everybody treated the same way. We don't want some people treated one way and then law enforcement officers accused of doing crime treated another way. That has never worked out in this city or this parish."