The D.C. police department plans to expand use of body cameras after successful completion of a pilot program, but residents frustrated by what they consider militarized tactics say cameras alone are not enough to improve officer accountability.
Protesters packed the D.C. Council chambers Tuesday for a police oversight hearing, holding up signs demanding an end to the use of police “jump-out squads” and occasionally interrupting officials by shouting out the names of individuals who were killed by police officers in the District and elsewhere.
At the Metropolitan Police Department’s annual oversight hearing, Chief Cathy L. Lanier discussed the ongoing roll out of the body-camera program and answered questions regarding police protocol following testimony by citizens who were critical of what they call abusive police practices.
Activist Kymone Freeman noted that MPD officers were cleared of wrongdoing in the 2011 fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Ralphael Briscoe in Southeast, despite the fact video of the incident showed Briscoe fleeing a police car as he was shot in the back.
“It was all caught on tape,” Mr. Freeman said. “The mere thought that body cameras are somehow going to put a leash on the cops is fantasy.”
Movements aimed at increasing police accountability took hold across the country last year in the wake of a fatal officer-involved shooting in Ferguson, Missouri. Many departments, including Ferguson’s, have moved to adopt body-worn cameras as a means to increase transparency and to keep a better record interactions between police and citizens.
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The D.C. police department plans to roll out an agencywide body-camera program in coming years, having recently concluded a six-month pilot program that deployed more than 400 body cameras to officers in order to test various camera models before the agency committed to a single type. The department is now in the process of expanding the program, converting approximately 250 pilot project cameras to a model made by Taser International, Chief Lanier said.
“It will probably take me three years to deploy across the agency,” she said at Tuesday’s hearing.
But the technology comes at a high cost. MPD estimates that it will cost approximately $1,500 per officer, per year to equip officers with body cameras and to provide storage of the video captured by the cameras. The department employs approximately 4,000 officers.
Chief Lanier said she is developing budget proposals to allot for the purchase of additional cameras in coming years. The new cameras will be deployed to both patrol officers and those in the Special Operations Division. The department spent $1 million on the pilot program, which deployed cameras to approximately 160 police officers.
Prompted by complaints about the police “jump outs,” a tactic during which a team of officers in unmarked cars swarm someone in a surprise stop, D.C. Council member Kenyan McDuffie questioned Chief Lanier about which units conduct the practice. The chief has downplayed the department’s use of “jump outs” in the past and previously said MPD would de-emphasize enforcement against street-level drug transactions as part of a new drug enforcement strategy, a change that may cut down on the practice.
On Tuesday she detailed circumstances under which members of gun recovery units, vice units, or crime suppression units might engage in “jump outs,” including when officers witness a drug transaction or see someone who matches the description of a suspect in a crime that just occurred.
SEE ALSO: D.C. police forced to return man’s marijuana seized during arrest
She added that members of both the gun recovery and vice units would be among those receiving body cameras.
MPD’s police union and the District’s Police Complaints Board have both supported the rollout of the body-camera program as a way to document citizen interactions with officers. Supporters say the recordings will curtail bad behavior by both parties and allow for a review of interactions that are the subject of a complaint.
Community activists raised questions at the hearing about how data from the body cameras would be stored and handled, worried that citizens’ privacy rights could be violated.
“Who ultimately is going to have access to this information? How long are they going to hold it? How are they going to be able to use it?” said Eugene Puryear, who leads the D.C. Ferguson group that protests police brutality. “I think there is a tremendous amount of opportunity for civil liberties abuse, particularly with facial recognition software.”
Chief Lanier said the department is trying to deal with the logistics of how to store the data from the cameras and that the department hired a privacy lawyer to provide legal insight on the issue.
Other suggestions raised by activists included increased scrutiny of officer-involved shootings and the formation of a citizen-run police oversight board with the power to fire officers for misconduct — the District’s Police Complaints Board investigates complaints but can only forward its conclusions to the chief who makes the final decision on personnel matters.
The department’s internal affairs division investigates approximately 340 complaints a year, Chief Lanier said. The Police Complaints Board investigated an additional 440 complaints of alleged police misconduct in fiscal 2013, the last year for which complete data was available.
Last year MPD recorded six police-involved shootings, four of which were fatal.
• Andrea Noble can be reached at anoble@washingtontimes.com.
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