Following the death of Eric Garner over one year ago, I called on the nation’s largest police department to adopt body-worn cameras. These cameras will soon be equipped on 5,000 NYPD officers, a victory for reform that cannot be denied. But as New York City moves forward with changes to its policing practices, we must remember our mission of restoring faith in the criminal justice system and avoid half measures that only undermine the fundamental purpose of our efforts.
That restoration means finding a way to publicly disclose video footage taken by the highly touted police body camera program. Because the entire point of the program is to provide transparent and objective records to restore the public trust.
There are big questions that still need to be answered, and full implementation of these devices with the right disclosure protocol in the NYPD will be a challenge. Advocates have raised serious privacy concerns for innocent individuals and bystanders, particularly when a police officer wearing a body camera enters somebody’s home or business or when cases of domestic violence are involved. We need strict rules to make sure officers provide clear notice of the use of cameras in these instances, and we need mechanisms in place to protect New Yorkers from being violated in any way.
We have to address the cost and logistics of mass data storage. How long will these records be kept? Is the video property of the NYPD or of another entity? What role should the current federal monitor or the city’s department of investigation play in overseeing the program? And central to all of these questions is who gets to see this footage and who does not, whether this program is an exercise in political posturing by a department under scrutiny or a true step towards a new era in our city’s policing.
We have seen instances of law enforcement officials falsifying reports in instances of brutality that were later proved by video. Several weeks ago, a plainclothes officer with a disciplinary past failed to even file a report after he mistakenly tackled and arrested tennis star James Blake. This lack of decency and professionalism was caught on a security camera and released by the NYPD after days of national news and public outcries over the incident. Although not on a body camera, disclosing the footage of this incident answered endless questions from the public and press.
Likewise, footage from body cameras can serve to exonerate our police officers from false accusations. The vast majority of our men and women in uniform are doing the right thing.
There has been broad agreement on the principles behind body-worn cameras, backed by leaders nationwide—including U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who stated that these cameras “hold tremendous promise for enhancing transparency, promoting accountability and advancing public safety for law enforcement officers and the communities they serve.”
The city’s own inspector general for the NYPD, Philip Eure, has reaffirmed the importance of public disclosure in his July review of the body camera program. “If carefully implemented,” he explains, public access to camera footage “could improve police-community relations and build the public’s trust in the police.”
There is a movement that has started in New York City and across this country, and we have a responsibility as government and elected officials to deliver a body camera program that prioritizes transparency while balancing the practical challenges associated with data storage and privacy.
We are on the brink of transforming police relations for millions of New Yorkers, but we have to do it right.
Letitia James is the public advocate for the city of New York.
