http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/18/nyregion/nypd-body-camera-policy.html 2016-10-17 20:38:44 What Would New York Police Body Cameras Record? For several months, the New York Police Department has been writing a policy for when the cameras should be rolling, but many questions remain. === When should police officers turn their body cameras on? Should they record interviews with people who are witnesses to crimes? What about in people’s homes? Should officers be permitted to review the video before they write a report? Should the video be available under public records law? As cities around the country outfit their officers with body cameras, officials are facing questions about what will be recorded and what will not. The The policy is being shaped largely by the Police Department, with fewer outside contributions than in some other jurisdictions. In Washington, D.C., for example, policies pertaining to body cameras were In New York, neither the City Council nor the State Legislature The department circulated a 10-page The draft policy listed a number of situations for when an officer would be required to activate the camera: making an arrest, issuing a summons, stopping and frisking someone, conducting a chase, searching someone’s property, conducting a car stop, or interacting with an “emotionally disturbed person.” In such events, police officers are supposed to activate their body cameras, and when possible, alert the public that they are being recorded “as soon as it is safe and practicable to do so.” The suggested script, provided in the draft policy, states: “Sir/Ma’am, I want to advise you that our interaction is being recorded by a body-camera.” But the policy also describes several circumstances when officers are forbidden from recording footage. When officers are assigned to police a demonstration, for instance, officers would not wear body cameras so as not to be conducting surveillance of constitutionally protected political activity. The draft policy does not provide answers for every situation. When officers use pepper spray against protesters, or conduct mass arrests of protesters, should they record it? Using force and arresting people are both scenarios that require body cameras to be turned on, but officers are not supposed to wear body cameras to demonstrations. Civil rights lawyers and activists are leery of inviting the police to record political activity, because it can discourage people from participating in demonstrations and can aid the police in amassing information about individual activists. At the same time, police officers sometimes conduct mass arrests at demonstrations, and video can help determine the lawfulness of conduct by the police and by the demonstrators. The draft policy notes that because officers must record arrests and vehicle stops it is quite likely that they will record the “initial accounts by victims and witnesses” in some instances. But officers are warned that they should turn off their cameras when “interviewing the victim of a sex crime” or when conducting strip searches of people they have arrested. The policy also instructs officers to turn on their cameras while patrolling residential buildings, such as public housing projects or the thousands of private apartment buildings whose landlords have authorized routine police patrols. It is unclear whether the police will make footage available to the public, particularly after police shootings. The policy states that there will be a “presumption of access” to the video. Yet the policy also states that there are numerous circumstances under which the police could refuse to release footage to the public: “when it interferes with active law enforcement investigations” or when it “would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” In “high-profile” situations, such as cases in which the police shoot someone or someone dies in police custody, the policy states that the police will most likely confer with prosecutors “about releasing the video to the public in order to balance the public’s right to information with the integrity of any criminal investigation or criminal prosecution.” New York has not passed a law regarding public access to footage filmed by police body cameras, although at least 21 other states have, according In New Hampshire, for instance, In North Carolina, however, a law recently went into effect that states body-worn camera footage is not a part of public records. While the law prevents the release of footage under most circumstances to the general public, it does provide for people filmed by a body camera to be able to make an appointment with the police to view the footage. The New York Police Department is now making adjustments to its draft policy, with comment from civil rights lawyers and taking At a later point, the Police Department will submit a revised policy to a federal court for review. The department has said that it expects to outfit 1,000 officers with body-worn cameras next year.