(NewsNation) — Although many see body-worn cameras on police as a good thing for transparency, an investigation by ProPublica found that the public rarely sees that footage when a civilian dies at the hands of law enforcement.
Mapping Police Violence, a nonprofit research group that tracks police killings, found that at least 1,201 people were killed by law enforcement officers in 2022 — or about 100 deaths a month.
Out of 101 deaths that happened in June 2022, ProPublica found that in 79, body-worn camera video exists. However, over a year later, the outlet said, authorities or victims’ families had only released footage from 33 incidents. When ProPublica filed public records requests for videos in the other 46 cases, they were told it could not be publicly released, or received no response at all, from 26 agencies.
State requirements vary for how quickly videos need to be released, ProPublica said, noting that some departments don’t even follow their own disclosure policies.
The New York Police Department, for instance, says it releases video within 30 days of a critical incident. However, ProPublica’s data review showed that they only released videos 64 times, despite there being more than 380 such incidents. An NYPD spokesperson said privacy concerns, local laws or “unspecified department policies” stopped them from releasing more videos.
“The NYPD remains wholly committed to its policy of releasing such recordings as quickly and responsibly as circumstances and the law dictate,” a spokesperson said in a statement to ProPublica.
About 14 places asked by ProPublica offered the videos for a fee, ranging from $19 to nearly $16,000. Six departments “eventually” gave ProPublica the footage for free.
“ProPublica’s review shows that withholding body-worn camera footage from the public has become so entrenched in some cities that even pleas from victims’ families don’t serve to shake the video loose,” the article said.
You can read the full story at ProPublica here.
