NC Attorney General says body camera law needs fixing

Falcon Heights police officers didn’t have body cameras that could have recorded their confrontation with Philando Castile during a traffic stop reportedly for a busted taillight on his vehicle. He said the new law will promote “uniformity, clarity and transparency” by establishing clear standards and procedures for releasing law enforcement recordings.

Just for an example, past year a leaked dash camera video from Fayetteville, North Carolina contradicted written reports in a fatal shooting of a citizen by police, seen in the cover photo of this story.

These shootings or their aftermath were captured on the telephone cameras of witnesses. Despite widespread outcry, including protests and submission of a petition signed by more than 3,000 people, House Bill 972 received little opposition in the Senate, where it passed by a vote of 48 to 2 before the governor gave final approval. Some lawmakers wanted to loosen restrictions on access. Pat McCrory on Monday signed a bill excluding police body camera and dash camera video from being scrutinized as public record. This law goes into effect in October.

House Bill 972, formerly known as the Body Cam bill, stipulates that only individuals whose image or audio appears in a police dashboard or body camera recording can request to view that file.

“It comes down to a personal or moral level of whoever the police chief is”, Wanda Hunter of the Raleigh Police Accountability Community Task Force told the AP. Many police departments claimed they could withhold the videos from release as “personnel records”, which are nearly uniformly confidential, but the new law plainly states that agencies can no longer make those claims.

Footage depicting the deaths of Philando Castile in Minnesota and Alton Sterling in Louisiana has helped reignite America’s ongoing debate over police violence. They said it will increase transparency because it clarifies the recordings are not personnel files, which are almost impossible for third parties to access.

Once denied, a requester could seek permission from a judge, who can consider whether there’s “compelling public interest” in releasing it.

Also, police in North Carolina will now be handed control over what video is released and are allowed to suppress anything showing police in a truthful, but undesirable light.

“If [body cameras are] involved in a case and then video gets out to the public, what happens is it’s being tried by the public, not by the court”, Burke said.

As McCrory signed the law Monday, national lawmakers were moving forward with their own efforts to strengthen protections for police.

McCrory said he believed the legislation is fair to everyone and that such technology can be misused.

“Technology like dashboard and body cameras can be very helpful, but when used by itself, technology can also mislead and misinform, which also causes other issues and problems within our community”, he said.

While the governor said the law would “walk that fine line” between transparency and preserving officers’ privacy, journalists said they felt the law would soon be tested.

The measure has been in the works since April as part of a bill that included a needle exchange program.