The bill is identical to one filed earlier this month in the state Senate. On Tuesday, several state House members filed a bill that would require law enforcement to release body-worn and dashboard camera recordings 48 hours after the incident upon request, unless the agency receives a court order sealing the recording for a set amount of time. Some state lawmakers want to repeal North Carolina's body camera law. "The district attorney made it clear to the public that he wanted time before the video's release to conduct a more thorough investigation." A more certain time frame "We've already seen that in Elizabeth City," she said.
The existence of an internal or criminal investigation - which is often the case with an officer-involved shooting - "is a very common rationale for preventing release or significantly delaying the release of the video," Webb said. The faces of the deputies involved were blurred, as allowed under the statute, "to protect the ongoing investigation," the office said. The entire encounter between police and Brown lasted less than 20 seconds, the sheriff's office said. In the case of Brown's shooting, family members and their attorneys said county officials offered them a 20-second clip of one bodycam video on Monday. That part of the law is a little "mushy" and is open to interpretation, Bluestein said. Under the state statute, the head of a law enforcement agency is allowed to show only "relevant" portions of footage to a person or representative of someone whose image or voice is recorded. "There's clearly a bias in the law toward law enforcement." "Other people depicted in the video do not have an explicit right to speak to the release or retention of the video," Webb said. Webb agreed that it's beneficial to have a third party involved, though she argued there are "major pitfalls" with the law - one being that only law enforcement or the district attorney can speak at court proceedings on the release of the recordings. Judges may have to take into account privacy concerns of those depicted in the footage and how the release may impact an ongoing investigation into the incident, she said.Īnyone can petition the court for its release, allowing for a wide range of stakeholders to be included, Bluestein said. "Sometimes it's helpful to have that third party who doesn't have a dog in that fight."
"The good side of this, I think, is the court can be neutral," she said. Other states, including Connecticut, Nevada, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Texas, also treat the footage as public record, according to the NCSL.įootage that may be restricted in Ohio includes depictions of children, nudity, protected health information, crime prevention tactics, personal information or conversations not related to the law enforcement activity, information that could identify an alleged domestic violence or sexual abuse victim, and death - unless it was caused by an officer. In Ohio, police body camera footage is public record - with several stipulated exceptions - under a law that went into effect in 2019. However, that's been very uneven across the country," La Vigne said, noting that some states have lately tried to be "more prescriptive" over that release. Theoretically, you would think that that means that the footage that's captured on cameras would be released. "The original goal of body cameras was to enhance transparency. Generally, the statutes govern law enforcement's ability to withhold data and information, La Vigne said, considering factors such as whether an investigation is in progress, if consent is needed from innocent parties or victims captured on the footage or if the video needs to be redacted to protect those featured. "Some are really big sunshine states, others less so," she said.
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