Officers’ cameras not used before shooting
Police in Bayview chase failed to activate devices until fatal shot was fired
Neither police officer involved in the chase and killing of a carjacking suspect in San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood last week activated his body-worn camera before the fatal shot was fired, officials said Friday, even though department policy requires officers to turn on the devices during vehicle chases.
The failure of law enforcement officers to turn on their wearable cameras during critical situations has been a recurring issue in the Bay Area and around the country, eroding the value of technology that has pervaded police forces in the past decade.
The Dec. 1 shooting of 42-year-old Keita O’Neil in San Francisco was captured on video despite the breakdown. That’s because the rookie officer who fired while riding in a cruiser with a training officer behind the wheel activated his camera immediately after the shooting. The devices used in San Francisco have a “buffering” feature that captures the previous 30 seconds — like a television DVR.
However, no audio is captured in these 30 seconds. The video was released Thursday by police.
Police did not say whether the two officers had violated policy, citing an ongoing investigation by the department as well as the dis-
trict attorney’s office and the civilian Department of Police Accountability into the shooting at the intersection of Griffith Street and Fitzgerald Avenue in the Alice Griffith public housing complex.
“Our body worn camera policy provides protocols for the use of these devices,” Police Chief Bill Scott said in a statement Friday. “There are several investigations under way and it is important to have all the evidence and facts before making a judgment at this time.”
According to police, O’Neil stole a state lottery van on Potrero Hill from a worker, shoving her and injuring her in the morning attack, before leading officers on a chase into the Bayview. Pursued onto a dead-end street, O’Neil jumped out of the van, unarmed, and moved toward the officers as they sat in their vehicle behind him, video footage shows.
Within moments he was shot at close range by the rookie officer, who was on his fourth day on the force. The officer, sitting in the passenger seat, fired through his own side window. He has not been identified, and efforts to reach his appointed attorney were unsuccessful Friday.
Because no audio was recorded, it’s unclear what the officers said to each other during the chase, depriving investigators of potentially valuable information.
Department officials released the 25-second body camera video, along with footage from security cameras near
“It to have is important all the evidence and facts before making a judgment.” Bill Scott, S.F. police chief
the scene of the shooting, during an emotional town hall meeting at True Hope Church in the Bayview on Thursday night. Some community members who attended expressed outrage over the killing, shouting at Scott and other department officials conducting the meeting.
The training officer driving the patrol vehicle, who has also not been identified, never activated his body-worn camera, police Capt. Valerie Matthews said during the town hall.
Department general orders mandate that officers equipped with body-worn cameras “shall activate” them in a wide variety of situations, including vehicle pursuits, use-of-force incidents and ordinary traffic stops.
Consistently activating body-worn cameras has been a challenging policy issue around the country. Because cameras don’t have the battery life or data storage capacity to record an officer’s entire shift, officers are required to turn them on during encounters.
When officers are engaged in potentially deadly scenarios, though, turning on a camera may not be an immediate instinct, said Sid Heal, a retired commander for the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and a police tactics expert.
“Forgetting to turn the camera on is very common,” Heal said. “When you have a violent encounter, turning a camera on is just one more thing you have to worry about. It’s not because of poor judgment or attempts to conceal or deceive. In most cases, it was just not high enough on the officer’s list of priorities to survive the encounter.”
In 2012 in Oakland, Officer Miguel Masso did not have his camera running when he shot and killed 18-year-old Alan Blueford after chasing him through a darkened neighborhood. Masso said Blueford had a gun and that he fired in self-defense when Blueford made a threatening move, an account disputed by the teenager’s family.
In 2014, the tragic accidental shooting of BART police Sgt. Tom Smith by a colleague, during an apartment search in Dublin, was also not caught on video. Sources told The Chronicle that the five officers who entered the apartment either weren’t wearing the devices or didn’t activate them.