A city councilor pushed last week for the release of an FBI videotape that shows Santa Fe's police chief and his brother to try and influence a separate police personnel investigation, Chief Eric Johnson said.

"I feel it was an attempt by Councilor (Patti) Bushee to put pressure on me and influence my decision on the Michele Williams case," Johnson said Friday. "It was another attempt by her to interfere in a personnel matter."

But Johnson didn't stop there.

"It's obvious it was an attempt to get rid of me," he said.

Bushee, who was not available for comment Friday, said Tuesday that none of the chief's accusations are true. "It has nothing to do with that," Bushee said. "(Johnson's comments) seemed very unprofessional and defensive, and they were patently untrue."

Bushee said she'd been pushing to see the videotape, which was given to city officials by the FBI in late February 2007, since she first heard about it a year or a year and a half ago. She said she didn't understand why Mayor David Coss was allowed to view it while city councilors were told it was part of a personnel investigation and off-limits to them.

"If I'd been the chief of police, I'd have been seeking out an independent body to review (the tape) and I'd release the tape immediately," she said.

Bushee also said she was puzzled by "the abruptness with which this long, long investigation came to an end."

Asked on Friday why the investigation took so long, Coss said he didn't know. "It beats me," he said. "It didn't look too difficult."

The New Mexican filed a public-records request for the tape soon after it came to light in the early spring of 2007 and has been regularly requesting it verbally from the city ever since.

City officials released the video Friday, saying the internal police investigation into the video had been completed. The video, shot by the FBI in a Cerrillos Road motel room in January 2003, shows Chief Johnson — then a sergeant —and his brother, Capt. Gary Johnson — then a lieutenant — entering the room without a warrant, finding a significant amount of cash, leaving it alone and then leaving the room.

Gary Johnson said entrance to the room was made after a law-enforcement source called him to say drug dealers who were staying in the room got spooked and left the money. He said because he believed the room was abandoned, his entry didn't violate the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

Eric Johnson was exonerated by the investigation, City Attorney Frank Katz has said. Katz refused to comment on whether Gary Johnson has been disciplined, though sources who requested anonymity have said the investigation found he violated the Fourth Amendment. Those sources characterized the violation as a minor infraction.

Eric Johnson said he believes Bushee pushed for the tape to be released to influence his decision in the case of Officer Michele Williams. Williams is going through the Police Department's disciplinary process because she refused to take off a lei and a strand of Mardi Gras beads Bushee threw her while Williams was directing traffic during the city's annual Gay Pride Parade in June.

Eric Johnson said Bushee renewed her efforts to get the FBI videotape released after the city in August released a dispatch tape and the videotape from the camera in a city sergeant's police car that captured an exchange between Williams and the sergeant concerning the beads. He said the city attorney decided to release those tapes, and had it been up to him, he wouldn't have.

Bushee, the only openly gay member of the City Council and the grand marshal of the Gay Pride Parade, said there is no connection between the two situations. She said an op-ed piece she submitted to The New Mexican was written because Williams asked her for a statement about Bushee giving her the beads during the parade. The piece was not written to try to interfere in a personnel matter, she said.

Bushee also said she is not trying to get rid of Johnson. "I want a fully staffed, fully effective police department," she said. "That's all I want. Our concerns really should go back to why the FBI investigation was happening in the first place."

An FBI spokesman has refused to say why the videotape of the Johnson brothers was made or who the target of the investigation was.

Katz said the FBI videotape was gathered as part of a criminal investigation and, therefore, not releasable under the Inspection of Public Records Act. Also, documents and tapes involved in an internal-affairs investigation are not public, he said.

The Williams tapes were not part of a criminal investigation or an internal-affairs investigation, so they were released, Katz said.

Williams said Tuesday that her case is still going through the disciplinary process. She also said she feels a bit awkward that she's been put between Chief Johnson and Bushee.

Contact Jason Auslander at 986-3076 or :jauslander@sfnewmexican.com.