Cambridge city councillors want the city to come up with a policy for releasing footage from police body cameras to the public. The council unanimously approved an order Monday asking the city manager to work with the police and law department to propose a rule and suggested a time limit of 30 days to disclose footage.
Four councillors proposed the measure after they were told at a Sept. 10 meeting of the Public Safety Committee that video from an 18-hour police standoff wouldn’t be released until the court case involving the man had ended. The standoff was with a machete-wielding man barricaded in his apartment and included police tossed “pepper balls” into his unit that sent the chemical throughout the six-story building and forced many tenants to leave for hours.
The man, Princiano Faustin, 51, has been ruled incompetent to stand trial and it could take months or even years for a trial to begin.
“I just think that we’ve spent two years and many hundreds of thousands of dollars getting these body cameras,” said councillor Burhan Azeem, the lead sponsor of the order. “If the footage isn’t released until much further along, many years after an incident, I think they kind of defeat the purpose. I think that whether you’re on the side of believing that police responded appropriately to an incident or the police responded inappropriately, a theory behind body cameras was we were able to see for ourselves a little bit.”
Vice mayor Marc McGovern and councillor Patricia Nolan pointed out that there was no law or state policy preventing release once “appropriate privacy protections are in place,” as Nolan said. “What this simply does is ask for recommendations and to be discussed. So I hope it passes, so that we can get to that, because I think we’ll address a lot of the questions that are in the community,” Nolan said.
Councillor Cathie Zusy was the only one to express doubts about the measure, saying that footage might not “be ready for release” while a court case is going on. Zusy also said she had spoken to police commissioner Christine Elow about the order but didn’t say exactly when. She also mistakenly said the cameras weren’t turned on unless an officer removed his or her gun from their holster.
The police did argue for replacing their weapons in favor of a version that triggered the cameras when removed from a holster – but that does not mean the cameras are off before guns are drawn.
Zusy voted for the order with the other eight councillors;
McGovern said the Public Safety Committee meeting gave councillors their first inkling that the city wouldn’t release body camera footage until the conclusion of a court case. Cty solicitor Megan Bayer told councillors at a Dec. 18, 2023, meeting that disclosure of camera footage would be subject to the state public records law.
Though councillors were discussing how the public would get footage at that meeting, no one asked Bayer about the implications of her statement. The public records law has a number of exemptions, including one that shields records that are the subject of an investigation, if disclosure would endanger the investigation.
The law office has rejected several requests for records from Cambridge Day using that exemption. For example, the office recently withheld 23 police reports of officers’ use of force in 2023. It isn’t clear why investigations from events in 2023 are continuing.
Police have said that employing pepper spray, such as officers did when trying to arrest Faustin, would be considered use of force.
The public records law governs records that government agencies must release to the public and exemptions that allow the government to keep certain records secret. For the most part, the exemptions don’t forbid the disclosure of records. Nolan and McGovern said Monday that city policy could determine when camera footage is disclosed.
The city was asked this week how many requests the law office has received for body camera footage. City spokesperson Jeremy Warnick said the law office is working on an answer. This story will be updated when we receive a response.
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Cambridge Police don’t want to be held accountable for their actions? Shocking!
Cambridge residents have asked for release of body camera footage of an August 3 police action which included a use of pepper spray, barricades and arrests resulting in injuries. This police action was against a free speech demonstration in Harvard Square. Residents want to look at body camera footage to better understand why and how pepper spray and barricades were used and what and when orders were given by police to free speech demonstrators. Did police conduct cause or hinder actions of demonstrators? What police conduct was warranted?
Requests for body camera footage have been made via the Cambridge Public Safety Committee. This far requests have not been granted.
Were residents and City Councilors “duped” into thinking that providing the police with body cameras would result in timely public safety reviews?
Why are the police so fearful about releasing camera footage?
Police conduct and the release of body camera footage must be a topic of city council election debates.
Great. We spent ages getting cameras on cops now they’re refusing to share the footage. Rediculous. Do they work for us or does the city work for them? Sometimes it’s unclear.