This article originally appeared in .
Earlier this month, a too familiar tragedy unfolded in East Los Angeles . Witness accounts vary 鈥� the police department says Romero fled when officers approached him on suspicion of scrawling graffiti in his neighborhood, then fired at officers. Some civilians say he had a gun but tossed it away.
As is increasingly common, the incident was captured on officers鈥� body cameras.
Los Angeles officials have touted body cameras as a way to provide transparency and and between police and the public in moments of crisis. But that鈥檚 not how it has played out because the LAPD鈥檚 policies for body cameras don鈥檛 provide transparency or assure the public that officers will be held accountable.
Instead, the department has stated that it generally unless ordered by a court to release them. Romero鈥檚 family has called for the footage to be released.
According to LAPD policy, before talking to investigators. Instead of promoting transparency and trust, LAPD鈥檚 body camera program has resulted in more questions than answers.
When body cameras were proposed nationwide, there seemed to be wide agreement they could be a game-changer for police interactions, oversight, and community relations. Public support has been through the roof. And body cameras have provided important evidence in at least some of the rare decisions to fire or criminally charge officers for or . But as departments put cameras on the streets, the evidence of their effectiveness has been much more mixed. found that officers wearing cameras are much less likely to use force or to be subject to complaints from civilians.
But other studies are , with at least one showing an increase in the use of force and another that when officers have more discretion over when to activate cameras. Against this ambiguous backdrop, police reform advocates have raised concerns about the cameras鈥� privacy implications, surveillance potential, and susceptibility to misuse.
Despite these questions, departments nationwide are moving to adopt body cameras. It is vital that those departments have strong policies that ensure cameras are used for accountability, not surveillance.
Departments must clearly require officers to record every investigative interaction with a member of the public. While constant recording could risk civilians鈥� and officers鈥� privacy, departments can 鈥� and must 鈥� monitor compliance and discipline those who fail to record when they should. Officers who repeatedly fail to record incidents should be identified and corrected 鈥� or fired 鈥� long before they鈥檙e involved in a serious incident.
When there鈥檚 a shooting or other investigation, policies must require officers to give initial accounts of what happened and why they acted as they did before watching the body camera video. Seeing the video allows cops who are inclined to lie to tailor their story to the evidence. Even for officers who try to tell the truth, seeing the video will impact how they remember an incident. What helps investigators piece together the whole truth is the officers鈥� subjective memory of what they thought at the time. The police don鈥檛 let other witnesses watch the video of a shooting before providing a statement or show other suspects the evidence in a case before interviewing them. Police shouldn鈥檛 have such an advantage.
Video of shootings and other potential misconduct must be released, pursuant to policies that ensure they don鈥檛 just get out when it helps the officers. Transparency allows the public to judge for themselves whether police are acting in keeping with a community鈥檚 values, and whether the institutions charged with holding officers accountable are working.
Finally, departments should clearly prohibit use of body cameras as surveillance tools. Video shouldn鈥檛 be accessed unless there鈥檚 reason to think it contains evidence of crime or misconduct, and data-mining tools, such as facial recognition, mustn鈥檛 be used on the video. Moreover, strict limits should be placed on how long footage is retained. The public supports body cameras as tools for police accountability. Mission creep into surveillance should be stopped at the outset.
The policies that govern the use of body cameras matter. Sadly, a recent shows many departments鈥� policies are seriously flawed, if they have any public policy on the cameras at all. This can and must be fixed.
Body cameras will never be a cure-all for police misconduct or the crisis of confidence in law enforcement that many of us feel. But if they are to be any help at all 鈥� and they could be 鈥� they must be done right.
