What body cams are for
One of the NYPD’s most welcome recent steps forward in making policing decisions more transparent — the use of body cameras and the release of their footage after controversial incidents — is under assault by a narrow-minded lawsuit from the city’s largest police union.
Cameras are becoming standard equipment on officers across America for a damn good reason: They shine highly educational light on how and why cops use force when they do, injecting the truth into highly charged public debates.
Sometimes, as with the footage released last month of the killing of Daniel Shaver in Arizona, video heightens scrutiny on police officers’ actions. More often, especially with well-trained police departments like New York’s, they make cops look much better than the caricature drawn by their detractors.
Recent local case in point: The September release of footage showing the shooting of Miguel Antonio Richards. It showed cops negotiating with the emotionally disturbed man and ultimately firing when the glimmer of what appeared to be a weapon appeared in his hand.
The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association argues that the public release of footage violates a state civil rights law, called 50-a, that bars release of “personnel records used to evaluate performance toward continued employment or promotion.”
The city rejects the notion that footage is a “personnel record” under state law — instead comparing footage to work product like evidence reports and the forms that detail stop-and-frisk encounters, items regularly released to the public.
They’re right about this. But the city sure hasn’t helped itself by withholding a wide range of other disciplinary records under an expansive and questionable interpretation of that very same law.
For decades, NYPD brass regularly posted, for public consumption, announcements of promotions and disciplinary actions on bulletin boards at police headquarters. That disclosure abruptly ended in 2016, with the city saying its hands were tied by the state law.
To further confuse the issue, the city cited 50-a as a reason why it would resist disclosing body camera footage while contesting a suit from NY1.
Now, the city’s lawyers switch gears, insisting that while, yes, the vast majority of police records are none of the public’s business and, while, yes, it previously considered body camera footage to be none of the public’s business either, the NYPD is in fact duty-bound to release some footage.
It would have been much easier for the police and the city to arrive at the right position on camera footage if they had stood for transparency all along.
But the city’s convenient inconsistencies pale alongside the PBA’s. A year ago, in reaching a deal with the city delivering 11% raises over five years, the union agreed that all officers could be outfitted with body cameras within three years.
They pocketed the money — and now file suit to undermine the single biggest purpose of those cameras, increasing public accountability over deadly use of force.