Imagine a police officer physically harms a suspect during an arrest.
Should that police officer be able to review his footage before submitting it to his official report? Does the answer change if the suspect is killed during the arrest? Is that footage a public record?
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A bill now before the California Legislation proposes some of the answers.
AB 1940, introduced by 9th District Assemblyman Jim Cooper, would allow law enforcement officers to watch any and all footage before making a formal report or appearing in court. It also says that the footage can be withheld from the public’s view if a judge rules that way. Also written into the legislation is protocol for documenting which officers will have body cameras, for how long and what days.
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Assemblymember Cooper introduced the bill as a way to “protect law enforcement officers and the public,” said Jane Brawitz, a member of his legislative staff.
Its primary goal is to protect individuals’ privacy, according to the bill.
“The need to protect individual privacy and the credibility and integrity of official ongoing investigations and those persons subject to those investigations from the public disclosure of video and audio recordings captured by a body-worn camera outweighs the interest in the public disclosure of that information,” it says.
AB 1940 was introduced during a time when the public’s relationship and trust in police departments across the country is dwindling. A handful of videos and stories depicting cops using force to restrain individuals have gone viral and sparked nationwide outrage.
Recently, Paradise police officer Patrick Feaster was charged with manslaughter after footage from his dashboard camera revealed him fatally shooting a DUI suspect.
“It won’t make police departments any less transparent. All it does it makes a process of review before releasing the video and/or audio to the public,”Brawitz said
Steven Medieros, the head of the ACLU in Northern California, said he thinks the bill would have the opposite effect.
“It says in the text that under judicial review footage that contains physical harm, violence, or death can be withheld from the public,” he said. “The videos will only be released if the judge declares that the public’s interest in the video outweighs individual privacy. If that doesn’t make the police departments in California less transparent, I don’t know what will.”
Additionally, the judge in charge of the judicial review may favor the local police department and only release the videos the department wishes to be released, Medieros said.
Transparency isn’t the only problem opponents have with the bill. It could give law enforcement the upper hand in legal disputes.
A news release from Flex Your Rights, a nonprofit organization aimed at educating the public about what their rights are when interacting with police, said that the bill would allow cops to “get their story straight” before confronting the public.
“It gives cops an unfair advantage over the public. Police officers may try to justify their actions by saying other events happened out of view from the camera... Ultimately, it negates the entire purpose of having body worn cameras,” the group wrote.
However, law enforcement agencies don’t view this bill as widening the divide between the public and the police.
“I don’t think the bill is trying to further the rift between the public and law enforcement. We welcome transparency, and the bill does not preclude people from getting access to the video once it’s released either,” said Ralph Marcy, the head of public relations for the Fraternal Order of Police.
“This bill will create a way to formally document footage. It will create a database that people can sift through just like any other public record. Ultimately, it is a matter of protecting the privacy of the public,” said Marcy.
AB 1940 is not the first bill of its kind.
In 2015, the District of Columbia passed a bill that permitted cops to review their body-worn-camera footage before issuing police reports.
A similar bill is being introduced in the North Carolina legislature. It would give police greater liberties in choosing what videos to disclose to the public and how much of those videos would be released.