ACLU, cops don't agree on body camera issues

As more police officers wear body cameras, Michigan law enforcement agencies are wrestling with questions of how long to retain videos from the cameras and when to make the videos public.

A model bill released in May by the American Civil Liberties Union recommends keeping body-camera videos for six months, followed by automatic deletion. But law enforcement officials say that is an unrealistic and expensive recommendation.

"What they are suggesting doesn't work in the real world," said Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard, whose office is examining whether it will spend $1.5 million to $2 million — at least — to outfit the agency with body cameras. "If you're storing high-quality video, it is a huge amount of storage necessary. We'd be in the data-collection business. The cost of that is overwhelming."

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The reason for the six months is because that is the most standard time nationwide for people to file a complaint against the police, said Chad Marlow, ACLU advocacy and policy counsel.

Videos that show the use of force, commission of a felony, events leading to a felony arrest or an encounter that resulted in a civilian complaint would be kept for a minimum of three years, under the ACLU model bill.

"This is not a utopian solution. This is a million-dollar question. Storage is not a cheap endeavor," said Terry Jungel, executive director of the Michigan Sheriffs' Association.

Discussions about law enforcement buying and using body cameras have skyrocketed after police killings in Ferguson, Mo., Baltimore and other cities across the country.

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Leaders of several state law enforcement associations said 20-30 police departments in Michigan are using body cameras, with almost all agencies in the state talking about using them. Detroit police and Michigan State Police are testing them. Some agencies, such as the New Baltimore police, are waiting for cameras to arrive, and others, such as Roseville, are asking for federal grant dollars to help buy them.

While some law enforcement agencies have developed policies for body camera use, the ACLU said established policies are lacking in some areas. Its proposed rules are in the form of a model bill that can be adopted by state legislatures, local governments and police departments.

The ACLU has spent hours examining and contemplating police body-camera policies with a focus on privacy, criminal justice, racial justice, police-practice reform and other issues — with many possibly at odds with each other, Marlow said.

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Marlow said the ACLU felt a responsibility to come up with a model bill "that properly balances all of these competing issues."

"Body cameras can be a remedy and also make a problem worse," he said, citing as a possible example a police agency not releasing portions of video that show wrongdoing by an officer, especially in communities of color.

"Not a lot of people and organizations take on the issue from all sides, care about policies from all angles," he said.

He said police departments, policymakers and the news media approached the civil rights group about developing a model policy for body cams.

"We are all on the same team here. We are all trying to solve a common problem," Marlow said, adding that the body cameras will work well if there is a balance between promoting transparency and protecting privacy.

Lowell Police Chief Steve Bukala, whose 13-member department has used body cameras for two years, said he has revised his agency's policy three or four times. He said videos are kept for 90 days if they are non-criminal-complaint related, and found six months too long to hold them and 30 days too short. Criminal-complaint-related videos are kept until the case is adjudicated, with time to appeal, he said.

Marlow said in the model bill that officers would turn on cameras at the beginning of an investigation and turn them off when contact is complete and they've left the scene.

However, he said, there are three exceptions for when the officer could be asked to turn the camera off: when he or she enters a private residence without a warrant or emergency, when he or she is dealing with crime victims and when someone is giving an anonymous tip.

Jungel said anytime a body camera is turned off, there should be an explanation on the recording as to why it is being turned off.

Bukala said other locations, such as courthouses, medical facilities and jail booking areas, don't want body cameras activated. Many locations, some which could be deemed high security, have surveillance cameras to record what goes on.

The Michigan House is considering legislation that would largely exempt police body camera footage taken in private places from Freedom of Information Act laws. The footage wouldn't be considered a public record but would be available to people who are the subject of an audio or video recording, whose property has been seized or damaged by police, or who are the parents or legal guardians or attorneys representing an individual caught on tape by police, according to the legislation. News media organizations said the bill isn't protecting police or citizens.

In the model ACLU bill, officers would not watch the body camera footage before filing initial reports, so it would not influence their recollections or allow them to adjust reports based on what was or wasn't recorded.

But Robert Stevenson, executive director of the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police, said officers are typically allowed to review video, such as in-car video. For example, a Lowell police detective told the Free Press last year that he can write reports that match the video from the body camera, making cases more solid and allowing prosecutors and defense attorneys to essentially be at the scene.

"What your mind captures is not what the body cameras capture," Stevenson said.

Contact Christina Hall: chall@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @challreporter.

To read the ACLU's model bill for police body cameras, go to www.aclu.org.