Boost trust with public police video
The aftermath of Michael Brown’s shooting by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., and Walter Scott’s shooting by an officer in North Charleston, S.C., were starkly different. In Ferguson, civilians clashed with police for weeks. In North Charleston, the police chief and the mayor were praised for how they handled the situation.
A big distinction driving the two? In Ferguson, no video showed the public exactly what happened between Brown and Officer Darren Wilson. In North Charleston, video shot by a bystander went public, and once it did authorities did not hesitate to charge Officer Michael Slager with murder.
As Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police and other departments around North Carolina expand their use of body cameras on officers, the question of who gets to watch the resulting videos gains more urgency. A bill that the House passed last week fails to navigate this new and treacherous ground effectively.
Under House Bill 713, sponsored by Guilford County Republican John Faircloth and others, footage from body cameras and dashboard cameras would generally not be public records. Citizens would need a court order to pry them loose.
This emerging technology raises difficult questions around disclosure. On one hand, a primary purpose of these cameras is to increase accountability, of both officers and the civilians with whom they interact. Without disclosure, how much accountability is gained? On the other hand, video will capture all kinds of things that one might think should be private, such as rape victims, child abuse victims, the insides of homes, and innocent civilians who were not even involved with the police interaction.
Given that, the law must strike a balance between transparency and privacy. In thinking about how to do that, the overriding question should be: What best builds public trust?
We believe public trust would be bolstered most by a general openness by police. House Bill 713 strikes a balance, but in the wrong direction: It makes video footage private, unless an interested party can convince a judge otherwise. A more trust-building approach would make the video footage public, like 911 calls are, with certain exemptions and opportunities for authorities to convince a judge a given video should be kept private.
Faircloth’s bill rightly makes clear that police departments can release the videos if they choose and without the officer’s permission, even though other public records law shields employee personnel records. But making the records private by default means that even those private citizens who are in the video might not have access.
Body cameras are a promising tool for keeping both officers and members of the public on their best behavior. Most of the time, they will show that police acted appropriately, and so they hold great promise for strengthening the public’s trust. But not if their footage is almost always hidden from the public.
This story was originally published April 26, 2015 at 1:00 PM with the headline "Boost trust with public police video."