INDIANAPOLIS – In the college town of West Lafayette, police Chief Jason Dombowski said complaints of excessive force by police have dropped almost in half since he put body cameras on his officers two years ago.
Dombowski said the cameras increase the public's trust of police. But he doubts many other departments will adopt them if the recordings are publicly available.
Dombowski and other members of the Indiana Association of Chiefs of Police are backing a controversial measure to strictly limit who may obtain videos from police officer body cameras.
Critics of the measure - including those who represent media - say the bill is fashioned to allow police to keep secret the bad behavior of their officers.
Police recordings are government records, they argue, that should be publicly available.
Dave Crooks, head of the Indiana Broadcasters Association, called the bill “outrageous.”
“We feel like the current language right now makes it nearly impossible for the public or the media to access video of a particular police incident,” he said.
With the debate, Indiana is joining a growing number of states wrestling with critical questions over a tool that aims to improve police accountability, including how to use it and who gets to see the recordings.
In the last year, at least 10 states have passed laws restricting access to the footage. There is no uniform approach.
In Maryland, police are required to release footage of certain kinds of recordings, including those that involve use of force or result in a felony-level arrest.
In South Carolina, police videos are generally off-limits to the public, though the law allows access to law enforcement and those caught on the recordings.
Indiana's current law doesn’t require police to equip officers with body cameras, and few departments do. One reason cited by police who’ve held off – including the State Police -- is the lack of a uniform policy on who can access the recordings.
“Most agencies that adopt body cams are trying to be progressive,” Dombowski said. “But we should have some protections against the over-burdensome aspects of what’s still pretty new technology.”
Steve Key, head of the Hoosier State Press Association, doesn't see it that way. He says the bill, in its current version, only gives an incentive to police to release video footage when it clears an officer of an accusation of wrongdoing.
"This is a bill that leaves all the cards in law enforcement hands," he said.
The state’s open records law doesn’t specifically mention footage from body cameras or video taken by cameras mounted on police dashboards. Many in law enforcement consider the footage to be an "investigatory record," not routinely open to public view.
Police who want to use cameras pushed lawmakers last fall to craft a measure that spells out rules for public access. Among the concerns they cited was protecting the privacy of crime victims and witnesses caught on video. Another was cost of data storage.
The State Police estimated they would spend up to $800,000 a year to archive footage. That doesn’t include the cost of reviewing videos for release, and editing them to obscure the faces of victims or witnesses.
A measure filed by Rep. Kevin Mahan, R-Hartford City, and Rep. Ed Delaney, D-Indianapolis, would allow departments with body camera technology to dispose of footage after six months, and it gives them discretion over the release of footage.
If police refuse to release a video, the person requesting the footage would have to convince a judge to order its release.
According to their bill, a judge would have to find three things to do so: That releasing the video serves the “public interest”; that its release doesn’t create “significant risk” to any person; and that the recording doesn’t prejudice ongoing civil or criminal proceedings.
Media representatives - including the Hoosier State Press Association and Indiana Broadcasters Association - are pressing for another avenue, short of a court's order, to release a disputed video. One suggestion is to let a public panel or the state’s public access counselor decide.
As the dispute has unfolded, Mahan, a former sheriff, and Delaney, a former press lawyer, have looked at changing their proposal to find some compromise.
But Mahan wants the bill to stay intact. On Monday, during debate on the House floor, he fought off an effort by Delaney to amend the bill to ease public access to the footage. The House is expected to vote on the bill this week, before it moves onto the Senate.
Mahan is convinced that as it stands, the measure protects privacy rights while creating a mechanism for public access.
“The public doesn’t need to see everything caught on a police body camera,” he said. “And you know what? The media doesn’t either.”