Austin Justice Coalition co-founder Fatima Mann said access to recordings is the “meat and potatoes” of the policy, and in its current form, too much is left to the police department’s discretion.
“What’s the point of having cameras if you can’t see the footage on the cameras?” she asked.
The commission unanimously passed a resolution Tuesday asking police for a clear policy on when they would share body camera footage. It also called for quarterly meetings on body cameras between community stakeholders and police throughout 2017.
Austin police Cmdr. Eli Reyes said the department has three meetings scheduled for the rest of July, and he expects the policy to continue to evolve based on the meetings.
“Really, none of our policies are ever final,” Reyes said Wednesday.
Commission member Daniela Nunez said a 2015 state law sets out guidelines on body camera use, but each police department must figure out how to implement those guidelines. Lots of people — including the Travis County District Attorney’s office and the city’s law department — are still working on the interpretation, she said.
The law says body camera footage documenting “the use of deadly force by a peace officer or that is otherwise related to an administrative or criminal investigation of an officer may not be deleted, destroyed or released to the public until all criminal matters have been finally adjudicated and all related administrative investigations have concluded.”
But there’s an exception: police departments can release footage of officers using deadly force if “the release furthers a law enforcement purpose.” Police departments get to decide how to define that purpose.
At Tuesday night’s commission meeting in City Hall, police officials said they will not release footage of an officer-involved shooting until all investigations are done. For Austin police, Reyes said an example of a law enforcement purpose would be to seek cooperation from the public — like the Crime Stoppers program or a “Have you seen this person?” flier.
Not everyone was satisfied with that definition. Matt Simpson of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Texas office pointed out that investigations can take months, even years. Nunez said releasing video footage was crucial to make the body camera work for both law enforcement and the community.
“At times when video footage is not released after a critical incident, public tensions and distrust in law enforcement flare up,” she said.
Nunez said Wednesday she hopes police will consider broadly releasing footage. If not, she said, at least the people involved with the incident should have access to the recordings through the police monitor’s office.
The other main point of contention deals with victims’ rights. At the Tuesday meeting, several people asked whether victims of sexual assault or domestic violence can ask officers to avoid filming them to protect their privacy.
Ultimately, the decision to turn off the recording is up to the officer, Nunez said. Recent updates to the Austin policy note that if a person asking for the camera to be turned off is not “a victim or witness as described in this section,” then the officer should say no and explain that police policy calls for the camera to stay on.
“People should know they can request (the camera to be turned off),” Nunez said Wednesday — but she said more clarity is needed in the policy itself.
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