Body-cam video could help curb LAPD abuses … if they actually let you see it
Body-worn camera footage can be crucial in cases where police are accused of using excessive force – it helped a Minnesota jury understand the full details surrounding George Floyd’s death, and also shed light on the police killings of 13-year old Adam Toledo in Illinois and 16-year old Ma’khia Bryant in Ohio this spring.
In Los Angeles, advocates and attorneys say that despite the existence of a large-scale body-worn camera program, it remains incredibly difficult to obtain police body-cam footage in the vast majority of cases and that even for police interventions that lead to serious injuries, it takes time and effort to get access to all relevant images.
The Los Angeles police department (LAPD) is facing at least three lawsuits that hinge on police wrongdoing revealed in body-worn camera footage.
Like many American police departments, the LAPD adopted the widespread use of body cameras under pressure from activists protesting the police killings of multiple unarmed Black people across the country. When police in Ferguson, Missouri, shot and killed Michael Brown, 18, his family had called upon police departments to adopt BWCs (body-worn cameras) to document police behavior. Brown’s death was not caught on camera.
US police departments had started using the technology about a decade before. The police department of American Fork, Utah, in 2007 became the first recorded in the Atlas of Surveillance to use BWCs. Small police departments in the UK had piloted the cameras as early as 2006, largely as an investigative tool. In the US, too, early reporting on BWCs focused on their potential as an investigative tool rather than their potential to monitor police behavior.
Even though activists and politicians had pushed for BWCs as a police accountability tool, the LAPD at first forbade the public release of the footage, citing concerns about privacy and compromising investigations. The department changed course, however, in 2018 with a “critical incident policy” that mandated the release within 45 days of footage of encounters including police shootings and cases where police force caused people to suffer great bodily injury or die. Anyone can access this footage on the LAPD’s Disclosable Documents page.
The critical incident policy is among the most transparent in the US – some police departments have no release policy at all – and California instituted a similar rule for the entire state