Police body-camera bill clears legislative hurdle

SACRAMENTO — Police departments in California would be forced to release body-camera footage in use-offorce incidents and other cases of public concern under a bill by Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, that passed a legislative committee Tuesday.

The bill would no longer allow police to use the blanket explanation for not releasing recordings, claiming they are “investigative records” exempt from disclosure under California’s Public Records Act. Instead, AB748 would require an agency to disclose the recordings within four months if police claim it’s part of an investigation.

Law enforcement groups argue that the bill would push departments into releasing all footage, putting the public’s privacy and investigations at risk. The bill allows for agencies to withhold recordings if they clearly demonstrate that the public interest in not releasing the video or audio outweighs the public interest in disclosing it. Law enforcement agencies would be required to outline their reasons for making such a decision.

“This bill strikes a compromise between the public’s right to know but also law enforcement’s need to do their job,” Ting said at a hearing Tuesday in the state Senate Public Safety Committee, where the bill passed on a 5-2 vote.

Ting said currently the public has limited access to bodycamera footage and that practices between agencies vary. Many agencies, Ting said, don’t have a policy at all on when to disclose the footage.

Similar bills on when to disclose body-camera footage have stalled in the Legislature, even as the use of the technology increases.

Ting’s bill initially required law-enforcement agencies to adopt their own policies on the release of body-camera recordings, but last week he amended the legislation to create a statewide policy that pushes for disclosure, prompting backlash from law enforcement groups.

Due to the late changes to the bill, it would have to pass the state Senate and return to the Assembly for another vote before lawmakers wrap up session on Sept. 15.

Randy Perry, a lobbyist for Peace Officers Research Association of California and the California Association of Highway Patrolmen, said the bill would limit law enforcement’s ability to consider the privacy of individuals recorded and sets deadlines for release that may not prove workable. He said law-enforcement agencies supported the first version of the bill that allowed local agencies to adopt their own policies.

“We feel very strongly that the discretion needs to lie with the agency that has the footage,” said Cory Salzillo, legislative director for the California State Sheriffs’ Association. “There are any number of possible permutations that could exist on why the video should be released, why it shouldn’t be released, and this one-size-fits-all policy throws that out the window and says it is always going to be released.”

The bill is supported by the American Civil Liberties Union, which argued that police body cameras are an effective tool in increasing transparency and accountability, but only if recordings are released to the public. Otherwise, Lizzie Buchen, legislative advocate with the ACLU, said the withholding of recordings adds to public mistrust.

“We know that while law enforcement does not seem to have a problem releasing videos that cast them in a positive or heroic light, they do regularly refuse to release videos of the greatest public interest claiming an exemption in the (Public Records Act) for ongoing investigations,” Buchen said.