SPD Body Cams Under Scrutiny
Posted Thursday, March 30, 2017 by Andrew Charles Huff
Seattle’s long-awaited plan to equip police officers with body cameras has hit a snag. The City must wait until a federal judge overseeing reform efforts in the Police Department resolves a thorny issue: Should officers be allowed to watch video from their cameras before they write reports on their use of force?The judge’s court-appointed monitor, Merrick Bobb, argues they should not be allowed to do so.
Bobb believes officers should first write a report based on their perceptions before watching video that might skew their recollections of an entire event. He further argues that viewing such video would give officers the ability to reconcile their memories of an incident with what is shown on the footage and revise firsthand representations or eliminate observations not captured on the video.
But City Attorneys disagree and contend that reviewing the videos promotes accurate reporting, efficient policing and faster discovery of errors that could free someone in custody. Further, attorneys argue that no evidence exists that officers have a general tendency to lie or tailor their statements “to conform to what is — regardless of when it is viewed — an objective piece of evidence concerning events unfolding at the scene.”
Also, letting officers later review the video and supplement their reports — as suggested by the monitor — isn’t practical, the city says.What monitor Bobb and the city do agree on is that officers shouldn’t be allowed to view video before they write reports on the most serious use-of-force cases investigated by the department’s Force Investigation Team, including officer-involved shootings.
Judge Robart must rule on this question before ultimately deciding whether to approve the Police Department’s proposed body-camera policies, which the monitor generally supports.
The judge is presiding over a 2012 consent decree between the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the city, mandating Seattle police adopt reforms to address excessive force and biased policing. The decree requires that all use of force be fully, fairly and accurately reported, investigated and reviewed. Robart and Bobb have both pushed for body cameras, and the city has been committed to equipping patrol officers with them. The goal was to begin the rollout early this year.
