Counterpoint: Police body camera bill in MN Senate balances privacy, accountability

Legislation in the Minnesota Senate focuses on the key aspects of interactions warranting accountability, while respecting the privacy interests of video subjects in more routine interactions.

By Ron Latz

April 12, 2016 at 11:16PM
Deputy Chief Medaria Arradando demonstrates a mockup body camera similar to the ones the Minneapolis Police have ordered. ] Mark Vancleave - mark.vancleave@startribune.com * The Minneapolis Police Department took input on a draft policy for body camera use from community members at the Phillips Community Center on Thursday, March 24, 2016. ORG XMIT: MIN1603242057530730
Deputy Police Chief Medaria Arradando demonstrated a mock-up body camera like the ones the Minneapolis Police Department has ordered. A bill passed by the Minnesota Senate would provide balance between privacy and police accountability. (The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Nuance is often lost in terse rhetoric, while policymaking is always more complicated. We have seen this time and again with the all-or-nothing arguments such as the one made recently by Minnesota Coalition on Government Information members Pat Doyle and Gary Hill. Their commentary "The public should have access to officers' body cam videos" (April 7) exploited the tragic loss of life in the death of Jamar Clark to imply a false conclusion. What they did not say but should have is that any hypothetical body camera data of the Clark incident would have been public under the legislation passed by (not stalled in) the Minnesota Senate.

Over three extensive hearings and hours of public testimony in the winter and spring of 2015, the Senate Judiciary Committee carefully navigated the delicate balance between the privacy concerns of citizens in their own homes with the need for greater accountability for officers on duty. Representatives of the Coalition on Government Information were included and testified in these hearings. They offered multiple amendments, some of which were adopted, but the committee members respectfully disagreed with their insistence on unfettered public access to all videos. Let me highlight major transparency components of the Senate legislation, which I authored:

• It allows the subject(s) of the body camera footage to always make their footage public (after any criminal investigation has been completed) and hold officers accountable for wrongdoing if they ever question police conduct.

• It requires police departments to create written procedures for body cameras for public comment.

• It classifies data as public when the use of force by an officer results in significant bodily harm or death in a public space — as was the case in the death of Jamar Clark.

• It maintains that citizens who do not want to be on public footage for privacy reasons be redacted.

Citizens deserve privacy when they request the assistance of officers in tense situations in their own homes, sometimes the worst moments of their lives. Yet, it may be important to have video footage in order to prosecute crimes or to hold police accountable for their handling of the incident. If always public, then private household images and sensitive information would be available for anyone to put on YouTube and other online forums. As we know, once online it can never be private again. Then employers, neighbors, family members, friends, colleagues, predatory criminals and strangers could see it all. Making it all public also could cause citizens to fear calling their local police departments. Recording the video and classifying it as not public while allowing the video subject to review it and choose whether to release it meets both goals of privacy protection and police accountability.

The April 7 article also failed to highlight that the current body camera data classification is ambiguous for cities attempting to introduce the popular technology to the force. Use of body cameras is currently cost-prohibitive in large part due to the required data storage of large amounts of mundane information. The lack of state guidance is stalling the growth of body camera adoption statewide.

The Coalition on Government Information is apparently fine with having video of the worst moments of people's lives often in the privacy of their own homes show up on YouTube the next day without their consent for the whole world to see. I am not. And the coalition's position would apply to routine incidents that do not involve use of force with injuries. We do not have the public taxpayer resources to film and store everything and then review and redact it when its release is requested.

Thus, the Senate focuses on the key aspects of police accountability interactions — use of force involving injury and death — while respecting the privacy interests of video subjects in more routine police-citizen interactions. The Senate has struck a balance here between transparency and privacy, accountability and respect for crime victims.

None of those competing goals can be achieved 100 percent, and neither can the goals of the Coalition on Government Information. After one and a half years of discussion, it is time to allow victims, police and local governments to have the balance and clarity of a well-crafted law addressing critical community needs. Until then, the statewide accountability and the crime-solving capabilities of police body cameras will remain just a goal.

Ron Latz, DFL-St. Louis Park, is a member of the Minnesota Senate.

about the writer

Ron Latz