copcameras.jpg
  • Illustration by dylan goldberger
Mayor Charlie Hales is putting his pursuit of body-mounted cameras for Portland police officers on pause until January—after a lengthy public hearing this afternoon where city commissioners joined advocates in raising questions about how the cameras will be regulated, whether state privacy laws might changed, and how any footage might be used.

That decision means a final vote to seek bids from camera-system vendors—a step well short of actually signing a contract to purchase and deploy cameras—won't come until January 7 at the earliest. Hales made the decision just after 2 pm—following a lunch break that came after nearly two hours of discussion on an item that was only scheduled to take up 30 minutes.

"It isn't a threshold decision of 'yes, we're buying it,'" Hales said earlier in the discussion. "It's the right thing to do, to find out what the equipment costs and who would supply what, while we're having the community conversation on policy and the legislative conversation on privacy."

That distinction wasn't persuasive for some who spoke, however. And it might have been blurred by some by the inclusion, in city documents on the council agenda, of cost figures for the new camera systems. Upfront costs, the cops estimate, could reach $1 million, with ongoing costs hitting $750,000 a year. (The bureau has $830,000 or so set aside to offset upfront costs.)

Commissioner Dan Saltzman was worked up enough to press Hales for a "commitment" that no money would be allocated until all policy issues are satisfactorily resolved. Commissioner Amanda Fritz also wanted assurances that a "public process" would be set up to handle concerns.

"You have my commitment," Hales promised. "And you have right to vote on a contact when there is one."

The questions raised are complicated—and there are several of them.

Will cops record all the time? (Unknown—although the bureau seems to be leaning toward more recording than less.) What about when interviewing sexual assault victims or minors or when visiting hospitals? (A policy to-be-determined would likely rule those uses out.) Can officers face discipline if they "edit on the fly," turning the cameras on and off without consequence? (Unknown.) Accountability advocate JoAnn Hardesty cited a recent review of five cities' use of cameras that found cameras not recording in 60 percent of use of force incidents.

How long will footage linger? (Unknown.) Can it be used as evidence in court? (Yes.) Will it be used in police misconduct complaints? (Yes... that's a lot of the point.) What if the footage is leaked? (The bureau says footage can be "locked down" so only certain officers can view it—with audits available showing who watched the footage and when.)

And then there are questions for the Legislature, which must tweak Oregon's eavesdropping laws to offer an exemption for body-mounted cameras. A similar exemption had previously been made for the bureau's car-mounted cameras. The city's also going to ask the Legislature to address camera footage in the state's public record laws to keep the footage from being shared as widely as 911 audio currently is.

Saltzman, in particular, seemed worried the council wouldn't get everything it wanted from the Legislature, imbuing the Oregon Newspapers Association with the lobbying might to possibly thwart the city's goal.

"It does seem we're putting the cart before the horse," Saltzman said. "I can envision very horrendous footage of officers involved in shootings and officers being shot. And is that stuff going to be public? We don't even know if we'll have the privacy protections that all of us agree should be in place?"

"We're putting out" a request for bids, replied Lieutenant John Scruggs, the bureau's point person for the cameras. "We're not asking to buy. We can say we're not initiating a contract absent those provisions."

Scruggs also pointed out that the bureau can craft policies for privacy that go beyond what the Legislature might enact, while also suggesting the bureau would like to hold "public forums."

"We can be more restrictive," he said. "And I'm guessing our policy probably would be."

The American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon is tentatively interested in seeing body cameras handed out to officers, but not formally in support yet, submitting written remarks (pdf) that make clear the group is making a bit of an exception for a new surveillance program.

While the ACLU generally takes a dim view of the proliferation of surveillance in our society, we also believe that body cameras may be different. With—and only with—policies that protect privacy, body cameras have the potential to be useful tools to hold police accountable for misconduct, the improper use of force and other abuses of power.

Scruggs, when he was briefing commissioners before the public spoke, made clear something else without being asked. Cameras aren't a panacea for restoring faith in the police bureau for those who've lost it, or never even had it in the first place. They're just one more tool, providing an unfiltered account of an interaction—assuming they're used correctly and transparently. (Discipline and civilian oversight and good investigations being some other things that would help restore faith for activists.)

"This is one way to help close the gap in community trust," he said.

Hardesty, in her remarks, made the same point, but much more strongly. She said a group calling itself Right to the City Coalition had prepared a long list of community demands for policies meant to guide how cameras would be used. The demands call for having an independent agency serve as custodian of the footage, deciding how it's used and making the footage public. (The list also includes some general accountability demands, like doing away with the 48-hour rule and dropping the city's appeal of a federal judge's order for annual court updates of the city's federal police reform deal.)

"It can't be just a police thing," Hardesty says. "They get to decide when to use it. They get to decide when to disclose it. They get to decide if anything's wrong."