Above: The Ad Hoc Committee on Police and Community Relations held its final community forum on Thursday night, this one on the topic of body cameras, at Olympia City Hall. The group has held five forums, each reaching out to different segments of the community to discuss local police issues. It is expected to end its work in April.
By Janine Gates
Will police worn body cameras help develop community
trust and transparency? Or will they add more problems than solutions?
Those were just two of many questions for the Ad Hoc
Committee on Police and Community Relations as it held its final forum Thursday
night at Olympia City Hall. About 40 people were in attendance, which included committee members and city staff. Olympia Councilmember Nathaniel Jones observed the forum in its entirety.
The city presentation by Laura Wohl, administrative
services division manager for the Olympia Police Department was a re-run of the
presentation provided to committee members on January 27.
Wohl has spent the last five years studying the
topic for the department and provided an overview of the policy issues and
costs regarding the technology. The estimated annual cost for the program would
be about $472,000, a conservative figure, she said.
Police worn body camera recordings are currently
public records subject to the state Public Records Act and present a whole host
of privacy issues, especially for juveniles, crime victims, and witnesses to
crimes.
As anticipated, by the time staff finished their
presentation, community members were weary.
Despite the best efforts of Reiko Callner, co-chair
of the Ad Hoc Committee and a former City of Olympia prosecutor, the group
struggled to understand and adhere to her line of questioning to only
discuss developing a process to receive input about issues related to police
body worn cameras.
The word “process” was bolded seven times on the
agenda.
Some new faces left without speaking, and those that
did stay were not united in the city’s stated commitment to use police worn
body cameras. The city has stated in part that it intends to move forward with
police worn body cameras when it develops plans, policies and revenues that
will ensure the program is successful.
“After listening to what was presented, what is the
bottom line, and what is the best way to get to it? Maybe it isn’t body
cameras…we should think about what are other ways to develop trust and transparency.
Body cameras may not be the solution. Let’s rethink this….” urged Charlotte
Petty, pastor of Risen Faith Church.
Nevertheless, seven pages of questions and ideas were generated on an easel pad about how to reach the most marginalized people who should be included in the process, whatever that process is:
Working through
advocates and organizations, speak with people who have cases in court, victims
of crime, people who perpetrate crime due to addiction, and those who live in
apartments. Using volunteer resources, reach people where they already gather
such as neighborhood associations, schools, libraries, bus stops, Capital Mall,
the senior center, and hospitals.
In general, the group asked the committee to table a
deeper discussion on the issue of body cameras until a process is best
identified to capture the entire community.
One forum participant was Tom Nogler, a retired
mental health counselor, and volunteer with COPWATCH, a local advocacy group that
meets to give support to
people who have had encounters with the police. A volunteer is available to
listen and write up a narrative of the experience at Traditions on Thursdays from 4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
A couple of months ago, Nogler said about 30
participants came together to discuss what they would like to see in local community
policing. Police worn body cameras did not come up.
“Nobody brought that out as an idea because body
cameras are just a small piece of the picture. It’s not like once we get them,
peace and justice will prevail,” he said.
What was on their list was the creation of a citizen’s
bill of rights, activism on judicial issues, voter initiatives and legislation,
empowering people to take a stand on police misconduct, restorative justice, watching court cases needing support, and the creation of an independent
citizen’s review board.
Some asked the City of Olympia to take a position on
ESHB 2908, a bill that would create a joint legislative task force to review
current state laws, practices and policies regarding the use of deadly force by
law enforcement. That bill passed out of the Washington State House of
Representatives on Tuesday afternoon and is now in the Senate.
The bill is scheduled for a hearing
A bill that the City of Olympia did support but did
not make it out of Rules would exempt police worn body camera
recordings to the extent they violate someone’s right to privacy. See Little Hollywood’s January 28 story
about that legislation at www.janineslittlehollywood.blogspot.com/2016/01/hb-2362-police-body-camera-legislation.html
Olympia Police Department Lieutenant Aaron Jelcick
said that each community needs to tailor its process to meet community
expectations for openness, transparency and inclusiveness.
He said that according to the U.S. Department of Justice,
17,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States are using body cameras in some form.
Twelve law enforcement agencies in Washington State
are currently using or have tried using body cameras, but some have dropped
out. The agencies that did not do community outreach, such as the Poulsbo,
Bremerton, and Pullman police departments, have had to modify their procedures
several times to meet community and law enforcement expectations.
“Body camera videos are not like an episode of COPS where you can see and hear everything clearly,”
he said.
One woman said that body cameras are just one tool for community policing.
“In our culture, we like quick fixes…but we have to
develop relationships,” she said.
The Ad Hoc Committee has two more meetings, and then
will tentatively report its findings on its work to the city council on April
12, 5:30 p.m. at Olympia City Hall.
For more information about the committee, go to www.olympiawa.gov
For
past stories about the Ad Hoc Committee, the Olympia Police Department, community
policing issues, body cameras, ESHB 2907, HB 2907, Scott Yoos, Andre Thompson
and Bryson Chaplin, and the Black Alliance of Thurston County, go to Little
Hollywood, www.janineslittlehollywood.blogspot.com,
and type key words into the search button.
To track state legislation, go to www.leg.wa.gov - Hearings are subject to change without much notice.
It’s clear that body cameras and dash cameras cannot by themselves change police behavior nor can they apparently convince a jury that police wrongdoing occurred, but they are a tool that, with increased usage and growing public outrage over police violence, are likely to result in more police accountability.
ReplyDeleteIt’s not only the high-profile cases like that of Rodney King and Native American woodcarver John T. Williams (shot and killed by the Seattle Police Department in September 2010) that need to be witnessed.
I recently met a local woman who told me that she called 911 when her husband – a veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress -- had a gun to his head and was threatening to kill himself. Sadly, when law enforcement arrived, they didn’t listen to her repeated pleas that her husband needed help and her assertion that she had not been harmed by him; rather, officers charged the husband with domestic violence and other serious charges. The State in its eagerness to prosecute for DV still refuses to believe her. What would we have seen had there been video footage of the scene when law enforcement first arrived?
Attorney Bradden Ferber was killed by the Olympia Police Dept. on May 4, 2012. The coroner’s report indicated that Ferber shot himself prior to being shot in the stomach by the OPD--or that the shootings were “almost” simultaneous. What if there had been reliable and clear video footage of the incident?
Tyrone Johnson was on his way to work late at night on an emergency outage call for his employer CenturyLink in Olympia in summer of 2014 when he was followed by an OPD officer (the same one who a year later shot the two half-brothers suspected of trying to steal beer from Safeway). A total of six OPD officers ultimately went to Johnson’s workplace and pulled guns on him. Mr. Johnson felt so traumatized that he was never able to return to his job and has hired an attorney ho filed a $1 million claim against the city. What would we have seen if there had been video footage of this incident?
And then there are the thousands of incidents so common in this system: the punishment of people who are poor, houseless, perhaps addicted to one substance or another--the death-by-a thousand cuts that keeps law enforcement, the court system, and the prison system churning out criminals. It’s truly a war on poor people--one that is so pervasive that, sadly, it cannot be captured by body-worn cameras.
As a city, we can and must do better than this. In spite of the many thorny issues involved, I feel that body cameras and dashboard cameras have a role to play in bringing to light the reality of police encounters with residents.