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NYC Council weighs giving police oversight group direct access to body camera video
By
Samantha Max
Published Mar 27, 2023
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Samantha Max / Gothamist
By
Samantha Max
Published Mar 27, 2023
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The New York City Council is considering whether to give the watchdog agency overseeing the NYPD direct access to officers’ body-worn camera footage — a move that could empower staff to conduct more comprehensive investigations into members of the country’s largest police department.
That access would be a game changer for the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which has often had to endure long delays to get body camera footage — and sometimes never gets it at all. If passed, the legislation would put New York City on a par with cities like Chicago and Washington D.C, where investigators already have direct access to police body-worn camera footage.
The measure would allow CCRB staff to log directly into the NYPD’s database of body-worn camera video to search for the footage they need to investigate complaints of misconduct.
At a committee hearing Monday, CCRB Director Jonathan Darche said it doesn’t make sense to have police control access to evidence of their own potential misconduct.
“The most important piece of evidence we can find is in the hands of the people being investigated,” he said. “Civilians will have less confidence knowing that we are only getting footage [the police department] has passed on to us.”
CCRB data show that body camera video has a substantial impact on the outcome of police misconduct investigations. In 70% of complaints that the agency fully investigated with body camera footage in 2021, investigators were able to determine whether or not officers had violated policy. But when investigators didn’t have body camera footage, they were only able to tell if officers followed NYPD guidelines in 29% of fully investigated cases.
Direct access could greatly increase efficiency for an agency struggling to keep up with a massive backlog of complaints about excessive force, racial profiling and other types of police misconduct.
In a prepared statement, the NYPD’s director of legislative affairs said the department “does not fear transparency,” but it does oppose the legislation.
“It would be an insurmountable obstacle to give CCRB direct access to our body-worn camera system while ensuring that they do not have access to any videos that are required by state law to be kept confidential,” Director Michael Clarke said. “It is an absolute barrier to this legislation.”
Under the current system, CCRB investigators fill out request forms with information to help the department identify the footage they’re looking for, like the date and time of the incident and the names of the officers involved. They send that information to a separate unit within the CCRB, which then sends it to police. Finally, the police do their own search for the footage.
In 2019, the CCRB told WNYC there were 1,600 cases over two years when the NYPD told investigators that there was no video in a case they were reviewing. The CCRB also said at the time that in 147 cases, the NYPD told the oversight agency that no video existed, only for it to find out later that there was. In one instance, a CCRB investigator saw police body-cam video in the Daily News after being told by police that none existed. In other cases, accused officers mentioned the videos in interviews with investigators.
The wait for video has contributed to a lengthy backlog of CCRB investigations. Between July 2021 and June 2022, it took the oversight agency an average of 591 days to complete a full investigation, according to the 2022 Mayor’s Management Report. Lack of access to body camera footage also played a central role in the systemic breakdowns that stalled the CCRB’s investigations into hundreds of complaints related to citywide protests after the murder of George Floyd.
In 2019, police and the CCRB signed an agreement that would have allowed CCRB staff to watch body camera footage in a computer room staffed by the NYPD. But the pandemic hit before the plan took effect, and the police department didn’t implement it even after employees returned to in-person work.
A 2021 report from the Office of the Inspector General urged the NYPD to grant the CCRB direct access to its body camera footage system.
The turnaround time for body camera footage requests has decreased dramatically since the height of the pandemic, when it took an average of more than eight weeks to receive video from police, according to the CCRB’s latest annual report. The CCRB testified Monday that it now takes an average of seven days.
The city’s largest police union warned the bill, along with a slate of other reform measures discussed at the hearing, would make it harder for officers to do their jobs at a time when the department is already facing an exodus of police.
“Has the City Council paused to consider what all this legislation is accomplishing, other than driving more cops to quit to find better pay and better working conditions elsewhere?” Police Benevolent Association President Patrick J. Lynch said in a statement. “There needs to be a moratorium on any new measures that burden police officers until they have assessed the necessity and efficacy of those already in place.”
Another bill before the council would also require police to turn over body-worn camera videos to the city Office of the Inspector General and the city Department of Records within 120 hours of recording. That bill would not only make video more available to investigators, but also to members of the public who request footage. Clarke criticized this bill as well, calling it “highly problematic” and “operationally infeasible.”
The NYPD started using body cameras following a landmark 2013 court settlement, which mandated sweeping changes to the department’s stop and frisk policies. Experts say camera footage can benefit the public by providing a direct window into police action, while also helping to clear officers of wrongdoing when they’re caught on camera following the rules.
Tagged
new york city
public safety
Samantha Max
Samantha reports on whether New Yorkers feel safe and whether the institutions that are supposed to protect them are working. Before coming to WNYC/Gothamist, she spent three years covering the criminal justice system in Tennessee for Nashville Public Radio. Her reporting on Nashville's police department received multiple awards, including the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize. Samantha was also part of the inaugural class of Report for America, a service journalism program that sends up-and-coming reporters to local newsrooms across the country. She is a Northwestern University grad, a Baltimore native and fluent in Spanish. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal: samanthamaxwnyc.93.
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