LC 2.47 An Improved Police Body Camera Act (Debating)

[Pyro]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This amendment is meant to tighten the restrictions regarding police body cameras in order to ensure the original intention of the Police Body Camera Act is met and that our police departments are held accountable.

1) The original law states that the police departments themselves shall determine punishments for officers who flagrantly disregard the law. I believe this is unacceptable, and therefore I have altered the language to demand swift punishment for officers unwilling to comply with the law.

2) In order to keep police departments accountable for the actions of their officers, the original law stipulated that any department unwilling to comply shall be fined $5,000. This is a nonsensically low figure, and as such I have raised it to $50,000.

3) Sec 2-VIII and Sec-2 V-IX have been added as preventative measures. Officers should not have the ability to voluntarily turn off the body cameras, and all departments should be tasked with inspecting camera equipment.

4) Sec 2-X codifies that video footage from these cameras shall belong to the public. That should be obvious, but this was added just to be safe.

[Pyro]

To the opponents of this amendment, let me emphasize how dangerous and backwards it is to allow the body cameras to be disabled while an officer is on-duty. The entire point of body cameras is to document the activity of police officers should an "incident" arise: This includes malpractice and negligence on the part of the officer. Considering, as of now, these individuals have the ability to turn off/on the cameras at will, there is absolutely nothing preventing officers from turning the camera off at a moment that would demonstrate poor behavior.

This is a prevalent issue and it is holding back the effectiveness of body cameras.

[Pyro]

To the opponents of this amendment, let me emphasize how dangerous and backwards it is to allow the body cameras to be disabled while an officer is on-duty. The entire point of body cameras is to document the activity of police officers should an "incident" arise: This includes malpractice and negligence on the part of the officer. Considering, as of now, these individuals have the ability to turn off/on the cameras at will, there is absolutely nothing preventing officers from turning the camera off at a moment that would demonstrate poor behavior.

This is a prevalent issue and it is holding back the effectiveness of body cameras.

Is it possible to keep a 10 minute timer per day for keeping it off? This would allow personal breaks such as the bathroom. If a police officer uses this break in public I would support firing and if any event happened they would be assumed as if they were the guilty party.

I'm not opposed to such an addition, but I worry that it could be exploited.

Is a police officer considered on-duty during personal breaks?
If not, then that solves itself, no?

[Pyro]

Im all for body cams and am outspoken in how strenuously I think the police should have to protect our rights ... but I also work a floor above our police station and work with cops everyday. They dont turn them on in the office, they turn them off when they come in to go to the bathroom. Our city adopted this stupid time card software a year ago for most employees and we still haven't had a week yet where everyone remembered to punch in after lunch immediately upon returning or stepping out. Im just not tryna fire people for 1 innocent and easy to make mistake. Hell, ill walk into rooms and forget why i went there.

If you had an amendment in mind to make this easier to implement while remaining fair to both sides I'd hear it out.

I worry that this would make it more difficult for police to do their jobs effectively.

Are there any members of Atlasia reading this thread who have experience working in law enforcement? Would some of these provisions make you second guess yourself when trying to apprehend a criminal? I think any measure that reduces police effectiveness by even a smidgen is dangerous.

There are individuals who are falsely accused of crimes (and I believe they should be heavily financially compensated), but I think we should do our best to improve the legal system so that they can be cleared. But with law enforcement, I'd rather be safe than sorry.

One criminal who gets away or who injures an officer because he/she was limited during the apprehension process is much more of a problem than false arrests or overly physical treatment.

Although I disagree that these provisions would make it more difficult for police officers, I would certainly be willing to listen to anyone who can speak from experience. Still, the lack of input from such persons since this response was recorded has me doubtful that we do have such an individual who can speak to this.

[Pyro]

Lincoln Council is now in Final Business Period

The Second Council of Lincoln will dissolve at Midnight EST July 16th

[Pyro]

Im all for body cams and am outspoken in how strenuously I think the police should have to protect our rights ... but I also work a floor above our police station and work with cops everyday. They dont turn them on in the office, they turn them off when they come in to go to the bathroom. Our city adopted this stupid time card software a year ago for most employees and we still haven't had a week yet where everyone remembered to punch in after lunch immediately upon returning or stepping out. Im just not tryna fire people for 1 innocent and easy to make mistake. Hell, ill walk into rooms and forget why i went there.

If you had an amendment in mind to make this easier to implement while remaining fair to both sides I'd hear it out.

I worry that this would make it more difficult for police to do their jobs effectively.

Are there any members of Atlasia reading this thread who have experience working in law enforcement? Would some of these provisions make you second guess yourself when trying to apprehend a criminal? I think any measure that reduces police effectiveness by even a smidgen is dangerous.

There are individuals who are falsely accused of crimes (and I believe they should be heavily financially compensated), but I think we should do our best to improve the legal system so that they can be cleared. But with law enforcement, I'd rather be safe than sorry.

One criminal who gets away or who injures an officer because he/she was limited during the apprehension process is much more of a problem than false arrests or overly physical treatment.

Although I disagree that these provisions would make it more difficult for police officers, I would certainly be willing to listen to anyone who can speak from experience. Still, the lack of input from such persons since this response was recorded has me doubtful that we do have such an individual who can speak to this.

Well, since you asked:

While I cannot speak to the police themselves, I can speak to the issues I see from my periphery position as a prosecutor. The most immediate that would influence me would be that this bill would create as well would have discussions between police and state attorneys be public record. This has created issues before in my county where defense counsel started demanding as discovery all attorney work product where a police officer may have been in the room. If this was the law in my jurisdiction, I would start making my decisions on arresting and prosecuting without fully consulting officers on details which might not have made it into police reports. If an officer and my own personal discussions of for example a witness's credibility are now going to make it into opposing counsel's hands I might not have that conversation and make decisions to prosecute or not without all the facts. Also, every conversation between and the appearances of a "snitch" and police would become public record and would be a major disincentive to anyone talking to police. This law would undoubtedly place people willing to cooperate with law enforcement in severe danger.

Something else that would be public would be everything about any ongoing investigation that lasts over 30 days. I know for a fact that in my county we have several gang investigations that lasted over well over a year before they made mass arrests. For many organized crime investigations, incidents involving politicians, and major drug or people trafficking investigations it isn't feasible to go after the group piecemeal. These types of investigations often are conducted over the course of several months or years. Everything about the investigations would now be easily available for the criminals themselves. The choice this would leave investigators would be to do a rushed, half-baked investigation or to risk criminals going underground and having evidence being destroyed or tampered with. Could you imagine how it might have made things even worse if any time police talked to the Mueller attorneys the whole conversations were immediately sent to the White House?

Even if you waited for ongoing investigations to end, you'd still have as public record any investigations where officers decided NOT to make an arrest. Think about the damage that it could cause to innocent people's reputations for it to be public record that you were under investigation for, say, a murder case, even if you weren't eventually charged.

Finally, and least importantly, there's the cost. Keeping and storing body camera data is EXPENSIVE. One professional estimate that was cited in our county when they were considering camera storage was that it would be about $100 per camera per month for storage. And that was with the consideration that cameras wouldn't be used for full duty rotations for every officer, even those not in the field. If you are requiring all on-duty officers to have cameras on at all times, those costs will skyrocket. Frankly, many (most?) police departments would swallow the fine before they followed this law; it wouldn't immediately bankrupt their departments.

My suggestion is that there would need to be limits: limits on who would use their cameras, when they'd have to turn them on, limits determining what would be public record, and limits on how long departments would be required to store data.

Thank you for your comment, it is appreciated in our debate.

I will look into introducing an amended version of this bill next session to address your concerns.