City council wants quicker access to body cam footage

City councillors are pushing the city and police department for quicker public access to police body camera footage, something they expected when they approved deployment of the cameras in April, partly to increase transparency.

Councillors at the Dec. 15 meeting expressed their frustration at the difficulty getting access to footage. “The community is going to be pushing on the Cambridge Police Department to engage a little bit faster” on the topic, said councillor Ayesha Wilson, who as chair of the council’s public safety committee helped lead the effort to equip officers with the cameras. Wilson will not be able to do so as a councillor, since she did not win re-election in November.

Wilson noted the legal exceptions that the city has cited to prevent release of footage, saying “I wish the council maybe knew beforehand. I wonder if that would have made a difference in what the outcome would have been.”

In a written response to the council’s request for a policy on disclosure, police commissioner Christine Elow said the department wants to release footage within 30 days “of an incident with heightened public interest.” But she then listed several exceptions, including “limiting or withholding information that may pertain to a juvenile, victim (including an officer when they are a victim), witness, injured individual, and/or uninvolved bystander.”

Police would also “withhold footage if its release could compromise an active criminal investigation, affect a defendant’s right to a fair trial, or reveal investigative methods,” Elow’s statement said. The exceptions are all related to the state public records law, which Elow said any disclosure policy will follow.

Questions raised

But councillor Patricia Nolan questioned the reason for a 30-day deadline for release of camera footage. “New Orleans has a policy that seven days after a critical incident, that footage may be released. There’s no request needed. It’s just proactive for critical incidents,” Nolan said. She added that “The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) model statute is five days from receipt of request. A request is required, but for transparency, it seems it would be prudent to have a shorter timeline.”

And councillor Sumbul Siddiqui pointed out that Worcester released body camera footage within a week of a controversial May 8 action by police officers who helped immigration enforcement agents who were confronted by an angry crowd while the federal agents were detaining a mother; police arrested the mother’s daughter. “Of course, there were redactions around personal privacy and, you know, minors’ identities related to some of the footage,” Siddiqui said. Worcester released footage from only three officers, according to city manager Yi-An Huang.

At issue in Cambridge are two incidents from early August, one involving a man wielding two machetes in Central Square, allegedly injuring a bystander, the other a protest in Harvard Square. In both incidents, police used pepper spray. In the case of the man with the machete, Princiano Faustin, police used the spray to try to force him out of his apartment at 243 Broadway. The chemical spread throughout the building, forcing residents to leave their homes for hours overnight. Some councillors also wanted footage from an incident the next day, a raucous Harvard Square demonstration against the Israeli war in Gaza, where officers arrested three protesters.

Police have not released body camera video from either incident, citing ongoing investigations of both episodes. Police department spokesperson Robert Reardon, who was not available during the week of the meeting, said this week that “an investigation would likely be considered active as it works its way through the legal process since materials presented during a criminal proceeding can prompt additional review or analysis.”

He added that the district attorney takes charge of a case after a defendant is arraigned and “we have historically consulted with and sought the approval of the District Attorney’s Office prior to the release of any material connected to an unresolved criminal case.”

Ironically, it was the city council itself that suggested a 30-day deadline for disclosure in a Sept. 15 policy order. The council acted after councillors were surprised to learn at a public safety meeting that footage from the 243 Broadway incident wouldn’t be released until after the criminal proceedings against Faustin had ended. That could take months or even years. Faustin has been at Bridgewater State Hospital since his arrest Aug. 2 and a Cambridge District Court judge has ruled him incompetent to stand trial. But on Dec. 1, a Middlesex County grand jury indicted him, starting another court case, which could extend the time until the legal process ends.

Meanwhile, the three defendants in the Aug. 3 demonstration are scheduled to begin separate jury trials on Jan. 22. Court records indicate that their attorneys have received 38 body camera videos.

Issues noted

At last week’s council meeting, Elow didn’t give a reason for choosing a goal of 30 days, but did say the police department would work to disclose footage faster, if possible. City solicitor Megan Bayer said the city might not be able to meet a strict 30-day deadline in certain situations, such as when “there’s hundreds of hours of footage to review, or at the moment, some of it, at least, can’t be produced because of an ongoing investigation, but in a few days, it might be able to.”

And city manager Huang also questioned a strict deadline for all disclosures, saying some incidents aren’t of interest to many people. “But obviously in certain cases where there’s really intense scrutiny, we would try to move a lot faster,” he said. “There would have to be some discretion as you’re moving faster on how much you’re releasing, and how to navigate these issues that are both legal and, I think ethical,” Huang said.

“Ultimately, I think we’re also going to be navigating that piece where not every encounter are we looking to do a lot of extra work, release, video, post it on a website, when actually nobody’s going to even click on it or look through it. So I think we are going to have to, like, feel this out a little bit,” Huang said.

He singled out the incident at 243 Broadway as one where “the footage could have been helpful” and hinted that the city might release some of it.  “We’re still navigating some of these issues in terms of how much footage to release, how it interacts with an active investigation, and how we get that out there,” Huang said.

Union negotations start

Elow said the city has started negotiating with police unions about the policy. Similarly, the city had to reach agreement with the unions representing patrol officers and supervisors before it could deploy the cameras. The city has refused to make that agreement public.

Overall, though, Elow said: “The department’s goal is to enhance public trust, protect individual privacy, and preserve the integrity of ongoing investigations while ensuring that video from significant incidents is made available to the community as promptly and responsibly as possible.”

Though the current union agreement on disclosure is secret, a body camera policy on the police department website includes some provisions on releasing footage, including a requirement that police officers be given a chance to review videos that depict them before they are disclosed, if possible. The policy also says the city will follow the state public records law.

Asked if the policy on the website reflected the current union agreement, city spokesperson Jeremy Warnick said: “That’s a policy that would not have been deployed without discussion and support from the unions.”

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