MCARTHUR, Ohio — Scioto Valley Guardian filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Vinton County Sheriff’s Office and Sheriff Ryan Cain, asking the Fourth District Court of Appeals to order the release of body camera footage and dispatch records connected to the June 30 discovery of 16 children held captive in squalid conditions at a Hamden home.
The original action in mandamus, filed under Ohio’s Public Records Act, comes nearly two months after the sheriff’s office refused to release any records from the case — no video, no audio, no call logs and no reports — despite repeated written requests from the news organization.
Deputies serving a search warrant at 182 Ohlman Street on June 30 arrested Gary Siders Sr., Gary Siders Jr., Christina Siders and Elizabeth Siders after discovering the children inside the residence. The Guardian requested body camera footage of the warrant service that same day, along with 12 months of dispatch history for the address — records that could show what county officials knew about the home before deputies arrived.
Vinton County Prosecuting Attorney William L. Archer Jr., responding on behalf of the sheriff’s office, denied the request in full on July 15. The one-page letter stated the office “does not have any documents or videos to be released” while simultaneously citing three exemptions under which information had been withheld — a contradiction the Guardian’s lawsuit calls “implausible on its face.”
The Guardian has been clear from the outset that it is not seeking images of the children.
In a written objection sent to the prosecutor’s office July 16, the Guardian expressly proposed that the children’s faces and bodies be blurred or pixelated and that any audio identifying a child be muted — standard redactions that Ohio law permits and that commercial software performs routinely. What the law does not permit, the lawsuit argues, is suppressing an entire recording because portions of it may be exempt.
“The children found at that address are victims, and their privacy can and should be protected. We proposed exactly that — blur every child, mute every name,” said Derek Myers, publisher of the Guardian. “But the arrests of four adults by public employees, on public payroll, carrying out a public function, are not private. The people of Vinton County have a right to see how their government responded — and what it knew about that house before June 30.”
The lawsuit asks the court to order production of the footage with only the child-protective redactions the statute allows, with the remainder of the video — including the deputies’ arrival, the warrant service, the arrests of the four adults and interior footage recorded after the children were removed — released intact.
A familiar fight — and controlling precedent
The lawsuit is anchored by a case Myers knows well: he won it.
In State ex rel. Myers v. Meyers, decided in 2022, the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled in Myers’ favor in a public records dispute with the Chillicothe Police Department, holding that records custodians bear the burden of proving — portion by portion — that withheld material falls squarely within a legal exception, and that exceptions to the Public Records Act must be strictly construed against the government. The decision, reported at 169 Ohio St.3d 536, is now cited statewide and forms a cornerstone of the Guardian’s lawsuit.
The filing also relies on the Ohio Supreme Court’s 2016 decision in State ex rel. Cincinnati Enquirer v. Ohio Dept. of Public Safety, which held that law enforcement camera recordings are public records and rejected the theory that responding to and recording an incident converts the footage into confidential investigatory material.
“We didn’t go looking for this fight. We sent a records request, we got a denial that contradicted itself, and we spent two months giving the county every opportunity to follow the law,” Myers said. “They ignored a written objection. They ignored a certified letter signed for at their own front desk. At some point, silence becomes an answer, and our answer is the courthouse.”
The Guardian’s lawsuit documents that timeline: a July 16 objection that electronic records show was opened but never answered, and a formal three-business-day notice to cure delivered by certified mail to the sheriff’s office on Aug. 5. That deadline passed Aug. 10 with no response.
What the case is about
The lawsuit asks the court of appeals to issue a peremptory writ — an immediate order — or, in the alternative, to set an expedited schedule, arguing that the news value of public records is greatest while events are current and that each day of delay injures the public’s right to know.
“This isn’t about one video. It’s about whether a sheriff’s office can stamp ‘denied’ on a matter of this magnitude and wait for everyone to stop asking,” Myers said. “Sixteen children were found in that house. The public deserves to know how long the warning signs were there, and whether the systems meant to catch them worked. That’s not sensationalism — that’s the job.”
The Guardian is also seeking statutory damages and court costs as provided under Ohio law.
The sheriff’s office and the prosecuting attorney’s office did not respond to the Guardian’s requests for comment prior to filing.