Mandatory police-worn body cameras have been central to the public call to better mitigate the rising toll of fatal police-involved encounters. Having the camera rolling whether it’s civilian or police captured has been crucial in the debate over police brutality and lack of accountability.
Video footage from police-worn body camera in the fatal shootings, such as the one of unarmed black man, Eric Harris, has been instrumental in understanding what happened. But what if the Tulsa, Oklahoma police didn’t release the footage showing Harris being chased, shot and pinned down by several officers?
That scenario could happen under the new body cam program in Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has taken heat after she announced a bill last week that would exclude body cam footage collected by the Metropolitan Police Department from public record amid privacy concerns.
Bowser quickly walked back her comments, telling Fox News the plan wasn’t finalized and changes would most likely be made as they were at “the start of the legislative process.”
But despite critics opposing her proposal, Bowser had a point: While video footage of police encounters can be invaluable for public awareness, it creates privacy risks for those being filmed if the footage is released.
Footage of police encounters, silly or serious, regularly surfaces on the internet. And privacy advocates warn mass body cam use could potentially open people up to unwanted and more intimate exposure, such as a look inside their homes.
But the implications from keeping all police body cam video from the public and the media is more detrimental to the public than it is protective of citizens’ and victims’ privacy.
“Police body cameras are helpful because they give the public a better view of what’s happening. If you restrict access to those tools en masse, it appears that the police and gov are only releasing what they want the public to see,” Chad Marlow, American Civil Liberties Union’s advocacy and policy counsel in New York City.
“Any position too far in any direction — hiding them all like in D.C. or releasing them all — can be harmful to the public or potential victims.”
Regardless whether the proposal passes unaltered, body cameras and their footage have been criticized for being useless without proper oversight.
“There are so many issues around body cameras that undermine any notion that they will be helpful in addressing the rampant violations of constitutional rights that are now almost ‘normal’ on our streets. The cameras are controlled by police, and can be covered up, turned off, and re-directed,” said Philip Fornaci, a private investigator and activist with the Campaign Against Police Abuse in Washington, D.C.
“The notion that a police officer would knowingly film, and not destroy or otherwise remove, incriminating evidence defies common sense. And if [District Mayor Bowser] is unwilling even to allow us to see the few surviving videos that might be useful in dealing with the police, I see no utility to body cameras for anyone other than the police themselves. The promotion of video cameras is a distraction, an ‘easy fix’ that fixes nothing.”
Fornaci’s strong sentiments aren’t unfounded. There have been cases of police altering or destroying footage before they see the light of day. Many law enforcement agency videos are hard to get even if they are open to the public and can be exempt from Freedom of Information Act requests.
Moreover, having video footage isn’t always enough; there need to be guidelines on how and when to record, save or toss the videos. “It doesn’t make sense for videos to record every moment of an officer’s day,” Marlow argued. Ninety-nine percent of the video captured will be unimportant, but the few that are of interest — any video showing an act of force, that leads to an arrest, or is subject to a formal complaint — should be available to the public, he said.
“Those videos should be flagged for a longer retention period and be available to the public so they know what’s going on,” Marlow said. “The rest should be immediately deleted because they’re of no use to anyone other than TMZ.”
On the flip side, Marlow said, police should take responsibility by offering to turn off the video in cases where recording may be harmful, such as when someone wants to report a crime anonymously, is the victim of a crime or when police enter a private residence.
Policies governing body cam footage vary widely. The Seattle Police Department was so overwhelmed with the number of public records requests for its body cam videos, it began making scrubbed footage available on YouTube.
“Our dilemma was how do we be transparent while at the time protect privacy rights of citizens,” Michael Wagers, chief operations officer for Seattle police, told the Washington Post. “People are going to demand that video” and, “if we can increase transparency, we can increase public trust.”
When starting body cam programs, police and lawmakers have to weigh policy that not only considers privacy concerns, but accountability.
“A lot of states and localities are struggling to come up with the right policies. And some of them are choosing to exempt certain footage and others aren’t touching it all, only requiring police wear the cameras,” Marlow said.
“The law has to be very, very clear of not only how videos are recorded and stored, but have very strict penalties for violating the rules. You don’t want a police officer who gets in an uncomfortable situation turning off the video or deleting a video after the fact.”