North Carolina Doesn't Want You to See Footage From Its Police Body Cameras

[Judi Lynn]

North Carolina Doesn't Want You to See Footage From Its Police Body Cameras

A new state law to "ensure transparency" requires a court order for video releases.

Brandon Ellington Patterson
Jul. 13, 2016 4:13 PM

Amid a resurgence of nationwide protests sparked by smartphone videos of police shootings of black men, North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory signed into law on Monday a bill that will severely restrict public access to footage from police body camera and dash cams.

House Bill 972 requires a court order before any such footage may be released to journalists or members of the public, which also means that police departments cannot voluntarily release footage without a judge's approval. Under the new law, police chiefs get the final say on whether or not people caught on camera—or their lawyers—will be allowed to view the relevant footage. If the chief says no, the subject will have to successfully sue the department to gain access.

The law's passage is sure to rankle some Black Lives Matter activists, who have repeatedly called for even greater access to police video footage in the wake of disputed police shootings of black subjects. Gov. McCrory said he signed the bill to "ensure transparency," and that while recordings of police interactions with the community could be helpful, they can also "mislead and misinform." In drafting the bill, McCrory added, lawmakers grappled with how technology "can help us, and how can we work with it so it doesn't also work against our police officers."

Susanna Birdsong, director of the North Carolina ACLU, believes the new law will hurt—not help—transparency in policing. "There really should be some minimum guarantee of access to the recordings by someone other than the police," she told me.

More:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/07/north-carolina-body-camera-law-police-video

[pipoman]

1. It isn't just BLM anymore

It is a public who is growing sick of police abuse, lying, and rewarding of bad behavior. It is time for police reform... they can't be trusted to police themselves.

Shocker that this would be in the racist south..

[Igel]

2. Think it through.

Police show up with their police cams and some kid's been kept in a naked cage and abused, and suddenly that video would be public information. Share it. Put it on kiddie porn sites--hey, it's police video. Your right to know is easily more important than that kid's right to have some privacy and be protected from "public interest" voyeurs.

The law doesn't apply just where we want it. It applies where the text says it applies. Once video's released, the remedies are slight. Best to put a gatekeeper on it. You want your video released, you can have it released. Otherwise, some adult that isn't an advocate or outrage voyeur gets to stand between the video and the would-be consumer.

Of course, that judge not only looks at the rights of all the people in the video, and that includes the police. If a cop does something wrong and the video would taint the jury pool and make it impossible for *his* rights to be preserved, then the judge has to decide between whose rights are more important--the guy who's going to be on trial or some third-party who's not involved in the trial.

[MMTampa]

3. Really. . .

. . . that's what you're going with "naked kid in a cage" . . .

[pipoman]

4. Nobody said anything about the video being broadcast live

The video would be stored for 5 years or some such. The video would be discoverable, just like cruiser video is now....no different.....except failure to produce a video would result criminal investigation for evidence tampering.

This bullshit in the op will be just another abuse by law enforcement until it is overturned by SCOTUS....