The great body-cam blackout

I

t’s back to the dark ages for New York City policing, if a destructive order from a Manhattan judge stands.

Not a scrap of footage from NYPD bodyworn cameras can come into public view, Appellate Justice Rosalyn Richter ruled Monday, while the court considers a demand from the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association to bury the videos forever, on the ground that releasing it violates a state law keeping cop personnel records secret. Call the case PBA vs. the world. In recent years, the nation has come to the hard-won realization that police body cameras can inject public debate with an urgent dose of objective truth in the wake of shootings and other charged incidents.

Which is why, like departments all over the country, the NYPD is moving full speed ahead to outfit its officers with cameras, and release video at the commissioner’s discretion.

If a bad law wrongly interpreted is going to make New York one of the only places that withholds footage, public trust be damned, the state Legislature has a duty to fix the law, 50-a. And fix it now.