Though more police departments are using body cameras among their rank-and-file, access to the videos remain restricted.

Laney Sweet wants to know why her husband was killed. Two months ago, Daniel Shaver was crawling on the ground and pleading for his life when he was shot five times by a Mesa, Arizona, police officer. “Please don’t shoot me,” the 26-year-old Texas man begged police before an officer opened fire. Officer Philip Brailsford, now facing a second-degree murder charge, was wearing a body camera, and Sweet hopes the footage will answer her questions about what went wrong. Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery recently invited her to view the video at his office, but when Sweet started talking about how outraged she was over his death and that she might speak with reporters, the offer was quickly withdrawn. "It was just really intimidating," Sweet told BuzzFeed News. "I didn't know what my rights were." Sweet said she was told she would be allowed to view the footage only under the condition that she not discuss it with the media. "The information that I'm going to share on that video, you can't share it with the media because it will affect the case," a man who Sweet identifies as Montgomery, says in a recording of the exchange she uploaded to YouTube. "In sharing that with you, it can't go any further than the people in this room, OK?"

The case highlights what many see as the limits of police body cameras, which has become the adopted tool of choice for police departments that have faced increased scrutiny over their use of force and fatal police shootings. In fact, as police departments committed to adopt body cameras within their ranks, lawmakers began introducing bills to limit public access to them. Though more police are now equipped with the cameras than ever before, public access to the video continues to be extremely limited, curtailing the oversight the cameras were meant to provide. Some police departments and prosecutors have adopted arbitrary policies about releasing the video, often ignoring the state's public record laws that would require they be publicly released, experts told BuzzFeed News. Maricopa County prosecutors told BuzzFeed News they could not comment on the story, or confirm the authenticity of Sweet's recording, because of the ongoing investigation. David Bodney, an Arizona attorney that focuses on media law and represents several news organizations across the state, told BuzzFeed News that law enforcement agencies in Maricopa County were more willing to honor the county attorney request than follow state law. "The Maricopa County Attorney's Office has taken extraordinary steps in criminal proceedings to seal or otherwise control the release of such footage," Bodney told BuzzFeed News.

Maricopa County Sheriff's Office Philip Brailsford