By Errol Louis
The public support and exuberance with which the NYPD has joined other
big-city departments in equipping patrol officers with body-worn video
cameras — a rollout still very much in progress — may soon give way to
buyer’s remorse. We currently run the risk of seeing a potentially
useful strategy to enhance police-community relations fail to resolve
controversial cases.
Earlier this month, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, the largest
officers’ union, sued the de Blasio administration for releasing
body-camera footage of an encounter between officers and a Bronx man
named Miguel Richards last September that ended with him being shot to
death by cops.
The PBA argues that the footage amounts to part of the cops’ personnel
record, which by law, it says, must be kept private. The NYPD says the
department’s leaders have the power to release videos that have been
edited to protect the privacy of officers, defendants, victims,
witnesses and bystanders.
The fact that such a fundamental question as who controls the release
of body-worn camera footage is still up in the air underscores how
little we really know about how best to use the technology to enhance
policing and public accountability.
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Source: The New York Daily News (via Empire Report New York)
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