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JEFF BENNETT: The use of police body cameras has become significantly more widespread in recent years, with the promise of curbing police violence and improving accountability.
As William Brangham explains, these cameras have fallen far short of expectations.
William Brangham: Jeff, there have been varying accounts of what happened when 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014.
Was it self-defense or a fatal overreaction?
There was no body camera video to help answer that question.
Since then, agencies across the country have spent tens of millions of dollars equipping police officers with small, wearable cameras.
And it has led to changes in some shooting cases, including murder charges for the deaths of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Tire Nichols in Memphis and, most recently, Eddie Irizarry in Philadelphia.
But a new investigation by ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine finds that it often takes months or even years for videos to become public, if at all.
Eric Umansky is ProPublica’s editor-in-chief and worked on this investigation.
Eric, it’s great to have you on “NewsHour” again.
As mentioned earlier, the promise of these cameras is to leave an unbiased record of incidents, and if police officers know their actions will be seen, they may be able to curb bad behavior. There was a belief that
But your research reveals how that promise is undermined by a number of factors.
what did you find?
Eric Umansky, ProPublica: Absolutely.
So primarily, what you have is the police left in charge of the footage.
It is then up to police to decide when the footage will be released, to whom it will be released, and what will be released, whether the complete footage or only partial footage.
And what we’ve found, as you mentioned, is that in many cases the footage is not released at all, and even in cases where the police themselves are keeping the footage alone, they are disciplining and punishing the officers. , or that they often do not take action to extinguish the fire. A person who exhibits problematic behavior.
William Brangham: And you cite numerous examples of body camera footage being leaked long after a tragic encounter, often directly contradicting what police say happened in the moment. doing.
— Are there any particularly memorable examples in your report?
Eric Umansky: Yeah, exactly. The example I covered most deeply in this story was actually the first New York police murder case to be captured on a body-worn camera.
It’s a young man named Miguel Richards.
It was a tragic and unfortunately common occurrence where someone had a mental health crisis and had a knife.
Police came to his apartment and 15 minutes later he was shot 16 times.
The police chief at the time generally praised the officers, citing their exemplary restraint.
And the NYPD released some footage, but not all of it.
And all the footage shows that the officer’s behavior was questionable and that professionally trained, specially trained officers were assisting.
And the police officer at the scene couldn’t wait and opened fire, killing him.
But six years later, the full truth has only just come to light.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Your report notes that Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck, ultimately causing his death, had done similar acts on multiple occasions before that. It is also detailed that the incident was captured on a body camera. , but it never came to light.
In other words, is there any way to know how often obvious illegal activities are caught on these cameras but never come to light?
Eric Umansky: Well, that’s part of the problem is that it’s really, really hard to know.
Three years before Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd, supervisors looked at the footage.
They were the only ones who saw the footage because the police refused to release anything, and in fact refused to release it even years after George Floyd’s murder.
That is, it only came to light after a judge ordered it to be done in a lawsuit.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: What do law enforcement officials say when asked why they don’t release this type of video, are they hesitant, or just don’t release it?
Eric Umansky: Well, there are legitimate concerns about privacy in some cases, and that’s one of the things they bring up.
There are also special laws.
In Minnesota, for example, the city’s police department cited a law I reviewed that was written in its final form by three legislators who were former police officers.
So the legislators and the law are also involved in this.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The idea that the refusal to release this video and the reluctance to release it was that the officers knew they could be held accountable and therefore might act better. It seems like it’s ruining the whole thing.
Viewers will remember the case of Tire Nichols, who was murdered in Memphis earlier this year.
In fact, this is how I started this story. There was a piece in the New York Times about that, and it said that when the officer realized his body-worn camera was on, he started beating him anyway.
And you think, how on earth could that happen?
The answer is that footage of Memphis is extremely rare.
It was unusual for the footage of his case to be made public.
William Brangham: Okay, ProPublica Editor-in-Chief Eric Umansky, your reporting can be found in The New York Times Magazine and at ProPublica.org.
Thank you very much for being here.
Eric Umanski: Thank you for having me.
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