Eric Garner, Michael Brown and Ferguson, Missouri, are some people and places that may come to mind when discussing police wearing body cameras.
These headlines have sparked a large debate on ways police departments can better their interactions with civilians.
Even the police departments in Moscow and Pullman either plan on or currently are utilizing body cameras, according to a March report in The Argonaut. The use of this new technology is a win-win situation in most cases. They can help discourage police misconduct and benefit police if a citizen were to make a false accusation against them.
Usually, officers have cameras mounted on their cruisers, which capture only some parts of their interactions. Body cameras can move with officers and provide footage of their actions from more angles.
Jessica Gee
While there are many benefits of this technology, there are plenty of complexities that come with it as well. The next step is determining who should have access to the videos filmed by the body cameras.
According to Benton Smith at the Twin Falls Times, many states have made laws regarding these questions, but Idaho is still in the process.
Some people who oppose body camera footage being available to the public make arguments concerning privacy. They argue that the footage should only be used in a court of law if the case ends up going to trial.
This indicates that if anyone wanted access to the footage, they would have to have some sort of warrant or authorization to access it. Any video taken by police body cameras would be treated as evidence and not be released to the public.
The points made in this argument are relatively valid. For instance, if a police officer came to the front door of my house to speak to me, I would prefer the video of that interaction not be released. However, making this video private would be eluding the purpose of body cameras.
A police officer coming to my house to, let”s say, warn me that I have received a noise complaint is a fairly insignificant event and may seem unnecessary to release to the public. However, if that police officer had entered my house without a warrant, I would hope that it would be released as to expose the officer”s misconduct.
I understand privacy is important to a lot of people, but transparency and accountability in institutions such as police departments is far more essential, especially when considering cases such as Brown and Garner”s, where the misconduct was fatal.
Police officers are employees of the public and the body cameras that police wear are paid for by the public. So why should police departments be in charge of deciding what should and shouldn”t be accessible to the public?
Police departments should not be regulating this issue, as the whole point of body cameras is to make them more transparent. Keeping this footage filed away would likely allow for more secrecy.
Giving police departments the authority to regulate these videos would just result in another failed attempt at reforming the nation”s distorted system. If anything, city and state legislators should be making policies on how police departments handle footage.
How footage would be made available to the public is still a topic that needs to be discussed. The important part is that the video is made public. This wave of police reform will be pointless if police departments are continually allowed to say “just trust us” with evidence that citizens should have the right to access.
Jessica Gee can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @jaycgeek