A report from U.S. Justice Department attorneys overseeing the V.I. Police Department’s compliance with a 16-year-old federal consent decree will be delayed because of the ongoing shutdown of the federal government.
The department’s Civil Rights Division wrote U.S. District Court Chief Judge Robert Molloy last week to request a stay, saying that they would not be able to file this month’s report because attorneys had been furloughed while Democrats and Republicans in Congress continued to spar over a federal appropriations bill. Molloy granted the request Wednesday but said the parties are still required to attend an evidentiary hearing in December, barring a subsequent order to continue.
Molloy told police officials, Justice Department attorneys, and a court-appointed monitor during the last evidentiary hearing in September that local law enforcement was on the “right track” and “right path” to complying with the consent decree, which was entered in 2009 following allegations that VIPD officers habitually deprived Virgin Islanders of their constitutional rights. That recent hearing covered reporting periods up to May 31. Since then, officers on St. Croix and St. Thomas have shot and killed at least two men: Alejandro Torres III, 48, on July 17 and Tyler Simpson, 36, on St. Thomas.
The Source has repeatedly sought information about those killings. Earlier this month, VIPD finally provided a copy of its body-worn camera policy, which states that public records requests for bodycam footage “shall be accepted and processed, in accordance with the provisions of federal and territorial law and forwarded to the Project Administrator.’ Further, “Public and Media request [sic] will be forwarded to the Public Information Officer.”
Another section states that body-worn camera footage “for release pursuant to a public records request or as authorized by the Commissioner or designee, shall be redacted, as required by law and Department procedures, prior to release.”
The Source responded by again requesting footage recorded by officers involved in the shootings of Torres and Simpson but has not received a response.
Though U.S. Justice Department attorneys were unable to submit a report this month, attorneys for the V.I. Justice Department submitted their own status report on behalf of the VIPD. According to Assistant Attorney General Ariel Smith, the department has one Force Review Board report awaiting Commissioner Mario Brooks’s review and signature, and investigative reports into two “Level 1” use of force incidents have been sent to supervisors for review before being forwarded to the board.
The only explicit acknowledgment of the summer’s killings was a statement that “VIPD is currently providing training (i.e., building entry) to their officers based on the body-worn camera reviews of officers of the most recent Officer-Involved Shooting Incidents,” according to the report.

If a proposed documentary chronicling Gov. Albert Bryan Jr.’s final year in office moves forward, it could begin with a familiar scene: the governor preparing for his last State of the Territory Address, collecting his notes before stepping into the Senate chambers.
From there, Government House Communications Director Richard Motta said, the film would follow the final months of the administration — not as political messaging, he emphasized Monday, but as a real-time account of how a period of crisis and recovery unfolded. Whether the documentary is ever produced, however, will depend on the cost.
The Request for Proposals, issued Oct. 15 by the Property and Procurement Department and first reported on by the Virgin Islands Daily News, seeks a production company to create a feature-length documentary that interweaves behind-the-scenes footage, interviews with colleagues and family, and archival material tracing Bryan’s political rise and the defining events of his first and second terms. It calls for filming key meetings, public engagements, travel, and private reflections, along with interviews with current and former officials, community voices, and those who worked closely with the Governor through storms, the pandemic, and the territory’s long recovery.
The proposal also requires that raw footage and full-length interviews be preserved as part of the Government House archive — not just the final cut of the documentary. Motta said that distinction is central. “Those archives don’t exist now,” he said. “Retrospectives are usually made years later, based on memory. This would document events while they’re happening.”
Motta said funding for the project would come from the executive budget of the Office of the Governor, not through a new or additional appropriation. He also stressed that the administration has not committed to producing the documentary. “This is exploratory,” he said in a call with the Source Wednesday. “That’s why it’s a proposal. If the bids come back at an exorbitant amount, then we could determine it’s not worth doing.”
Even so, the possibility quickly struck a nerve within the community. In a letter circulated to senators Wednesday, one St. Croix resident objected to the use of public funds, writing that the documentary amounted to “a film about ‘himself’ using taxpayers’ money,” and adding: “If the governor wishes to make a ‘film’ about himself, let him use his own money. This has been an awful seven years for the USVI, and now he wants a ‘look at how good I did’ film? Not with our tax money.” The resident urged lawmakers to intervene to “stop this fiasco.”
Bryan, in an interview with the Source, rejected the idea that the documentary is intended as self-promotion. “It’s a straight RFP to document the term,” he said, noting that public broadcasting stations like WTJX Channel 12 have produced retrospective documentaries on previous governors. He argued that the past seven years — hurricanes, pandemic, economic instability, and efforts to stabilize the Government Employees’ Retirement System — constitute a period that deserves to be documented while firsthand perspectives are still available.
“I think history is important,” Bryan said. “There are so many landmark things that we have accomplished as an administration and as a people. Our media spends so much time detracting from what incredible people Virgin Islanders are and so little on our resilience.” Preserving this period, he said, would “chronicle an extraordinary time in our history.”
The territory, he added, was still “changing course” after two Category 5 hurricanes when it was hit with a global pandemic — a period he described as a test of the islands’ resilience. He cited efforts to stabilize the Government Employees’ Retirement System “that no one thought could be saved,” negotiate the Medicaid cap and rum cover-over agreement, implement the first comprehensive land and water use plan, reduce the local match requirement to 2 percent, and secure billions in federal funds for rebuilding.
“We started from a point where we didn’t have street signs or lights and the government was set to go broke in 30 days,” he said, adding that the administration’s approach traces back to the early 2000s and Generation Now, a nonprofit Bryan co-funded, which championed public investment and access.
“Twenty years later,” Bryan said, “we have free college education, we’re rebuilding hurricane-damaged homes at no cost to residents, and we have a program that offers $100,000 toward a first home.”
Motta echoed the sentiments, framing the project less as a tribute film than as a record of governance. “If we do this, it becomes part of the public record — owned by the government for use by people of the Virgin Islands.”
The RFP does not list an estimated project cost. Proposals are due Oct. 31, after which the administration will evaluate qualifications, approach, and pricing before deciding whether the project proceeds — or ends at the proposal stage.