This newspaper has closely followed developments in the John Crawford III shooting death by Beavercreek police and its aftermath, as well as police-involved shootings across the country. Other I-Team investigations are available at MyDaytonDailyNews.com.
Nearly two years after the shooting death of John Crawford III at the Beavercreek Walmart prompted calls for more use of police body cameras, few Dayton area law enforcement agencies have adopted the cameras as standard issue in the field to record their daily interactions with the public, an I-Team investigation found.
Most local police departments, including Dayton, are still studying the costs associated with the cameras. Agencies also face a quagmire of legal issues surrounding the storage and release of the video to the public and news media.
The Rev. Daryl Ward, pastor of Dayton’s Omega Baptist Church and a member of the Ohio Attorney General’s task force formed after the Beavercreek shooting, said he wants cameras used by every police officer and sheriff’s deputy on the street.
“The cameras can protect not only the citizen, it can protect the officer as well,” said Ward. “If the camera is right there, everybody can see what’s going on.”
A pair of shooting deaths of black men by police in Minnesota and Louisiana this week have led to protests and renewed cries for more scrutiny of the actions of individual police officers.
The U.S. Justice Department launched a civil rights investigation in Baton Rouge after a bystander’s video showed 37-year-old Alton Sterling being shot by police officers Tuesday as they held him down. Protests and calls for federal intervention also accompanied a shooting by police Wednesday night following a traffic stop in suburban St. Paul.
In a live-stream video shot by Diamond Reynolds, the girlfriend of Philando Castile, the 32-year-old Castile is shown slumped in the car with Reynolds saying, “Police shot him for no apparent reason, no reason at all.” In the video, Reynolds says Castile was shot after he told police he had a handgun that he was licensed to carry.
In both shootings, outrage was fueled by video shot by bystanders that was widely circulated via Internet sites and news outlets. Tensions in Baton Rouge were heightened further after the police chief was quoted saying body cameras worn by the two officers fell off during the confrontation with Sterling.
In Ohio, the issue of what police video footage should be released to the public is undergoing both legislative and legal scrutiny. In a ruling expected later this year, the Ohio Supreme Court is weighing when and if police body camera video should become a public record.
Ward urged agencies not to wait until all of the legal issues are resolved before moving forward.
“We just have to start using it,” he said. “And the sooner we start using it the sooner we’ll get it right.”
Expensive technology
The Greene County Sheriff’s office is the latest Miami Valley agency to add body cameras. Sheriff Gene Fischer recently asked the county commissioners for release of $90,000 for a five-year contract to provide cameras for deputies on the road and in the jail.
“Body cameras are a good thing,” he said. “It will show the public that the guys are doing a good job. The purpose is to get evidence.”
Video and audio captured by the cameras can be used in court for the prosecution of suspects, just as agencies currently use such evidence from cameras mounted in deputies’ vehicles. The video also documents how suspects are treated during arrests and can be used to defend the agency in response to claims of brutality or improper behavior.
“If it protects us from a major lawsuit, it pays for itself,” Fischer said.
Xenia police and the Clark County Sheriff’s office also have experience with body cameras, although Mercer County has had them in the field the longest, going back nearly two years.
Sheriff Jeff Grey said the high quality video is valuable as a crime-fighting tool but does not come cheap. His agency spent $17,227 on the camera system that allows the video to be downloaded automatically when the units are placed in a power charger at the office.
“It’s really tough being in law enforcement because our budgets are so large and the public scrutinizes our budget with ‘Why does it cost so much?’” Grey said. “It costs so much because you want us to have all of this technology… Well, all of that stuff comes with a price tag.”
Some agencies have balked at buying the camera systems, concerned not only about unit price but also the expense of needing massive storage systems for many hours of video and personnel to handle public record requests.
The cost of one body camera system studied by Dayton Police in 2015 was approximately $320,000 over five years, assuming all of the city’s patrol officers were outfitted. In a statement released by the city, the department said further testing of different systems is planned for the future.
In addition to the financial hurdles, major privacy challenges also must be cleared, according to lawmakers and others. State Rep. Niraj Antani, R-Miamisburg, fears body cameras could capture private information when police come into a home or apartment.
“They’re going to see where your wife keeps her jewelry, where you keep your gun and where your daughter sleeps,” he said. “And that could be a public record.”
Currently, Ohio has no laws on when police can record video in a person’s residence or when that video can be released to the news media and the public.
Legislation coming
Some agencies have grappled with another sticky question: when the cameras should be turned on?
The American Civil Liberties Union has urged police agencies on non-emergency calls to seek a homeowner’s permission before recording inside a home.
“Body cameras are a complex issue for an organization like the ACLU that believes in police accountability, but also believes in personal privacy,” said Gary Daniels of the Ohio ACLU. “There needs to be some sort of policies, restrictions, rules, regulations, laws in place regarding when police enter someone’s home with a body camera on.”
Antani plans to introduce a bill soon to establish a statewide procedure for police on body camera use on private property. He wants the cameras rolling when police enter the property, but the video kept private. He likens it to the “Castle Doctrine,” a legal concept that protects privacy rights in a person’s home and allows homeowners to defend themselves from unwanted intruders.
Making the video public could show thieves where valuables are in people’s houses or in non-public areas of businesses, Antani said.
“The possibilities for criminals are endless,” he said.
Only one other bill on body cameras has been introduced in the Ohio House this year. HB 407 sets no specific statewide standards for recording video, but requires law enforcement agencies making use of body cameras to adopt their own formal policies for usage of the cameras, storage of the video, access to that video and who in the department is responsible for release of the video when it is requested by the public.
In Mercer County, Sheriff Grey has a policy for when the cameras are activated: before his deputies exit their vehicles. That way, he said, they are not distracted by the camera when responding to a potentially dangerous situation.
“Heaven forbid we have to be in a situation where we have to have our firearm out,” he said. “I don’t want a deputy worrying about turning on their body camera and the bad guy shoots them because they were messing with their body camera instead of protecting themselves.”
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