Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams spoke about the need for transparency in body-worn camera usage today at a New York City Council hearing with representatives of the NYPD. He highlighted the need to reform the department's policy on viewing footage, as well as the need to pass his legislation, Intro 1136, which would require the Police Department to submit quarterly public reports on information regarding the use of body-worn cameras. Additionally, the department would be required to annually publish information on each incident requiring an officer to engage body-worn cameras in accordance to Department policy.
This hearing comes as the NYPD has recently released new policy regarding body-worn camera footage. Video of the hearing can be viewed here.
The Public Advocate's full statement is below and can be downloaded here. TESTIMONY OF PUBLIC ADVOCATE JUMAANE D. WILLIAMS TO THE NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY OVERSIGHT HEARING ON NYPD'S ROLL-OUT OF BODY WORN CAMERAS November 18, 2019 Good morning, My name is Jumaane D. Williams, Public Advocate for the City of New York. I would like to thank Chairman Donovan Richards and the committee members for holding an oversight hearing on the New York Police Department (NYPD)'s use of body-worn cameras.
In 2013, the City Council passed the Community Safety Act, which established an Inspector General for the police department and eased the path for those with claims of bias-based policing to file claims in court. When my colleagues and I pushed for these reforms, critics and detractors shunned this legislation and claimed our proposals would reverse the drop in crime our City has seen through the '90s and '00s. We were told that the "sky was falling," and that biased-based policing was the best, even the only, way to keep crime down, and that the police needed to continue the abuses of the tactic known as stop-question-and-frisk. We were told that adherence to a 'broken windows' mentality and method of quality of life enforcement was necessary to make our streets safer.
We knew then that those assumptions were not true. We knew that we could have better policing and safer streets at the same time- and we were right. For the past six years, since passing the Community Safety Act, New Yorkers have experienced the lowest crime numbers in the "seven major index crime" categories - such as murder, assault, and robbery - than at any other time since the 1950s. I want to acknowledge that to victims of crimes and their families, those statistics mean nothing. I also want to acknowledge the recent uptick of shootings in certain areas. This of course means we must continue to do more. We must also avoid knee-jerk reactions in favor of advancing the strategies we know work.
The bill being heard today - Intro 1136-2018 - furthers the discussion. The bill requires the police department to submit quarterly public reports on information regarding the use of body-worn cameras. The department would also be mandated to annually publish information on each and every incident requiring an officer to engage body-worn cameras in accordance with department policy. This piece of legislation is essential to ensuring that we have full transparency in the information we get from the NYPD. Since the Inspector General's Office kicked off in 2014, it has had the chance to look further into policing matters than any other office before it, and it has received a tremendous amount of raw data in the form of body-worn camera video. But the millions of body-worn camera videos that the City now has are not public, and there has not been a discussion on how to make those videos available to the public, let alone to the victims and their family members. Intro 1136-2018 would give New Yorkers access to information about these body-worn camera videos.
The need for greater transparency is evident now more than ever. In April of this year, two police officers were responding to a 911 harassment call at Hill House in the Bronx, in which one of them fatally shot a man named Kawaski Trawick. According to NYPD, Trawick charged at them with a knife in one hand and a stick in the other. The entire situation was captured on police body-camera video, and yet, up until now Kawaski's family has not been able to see the footage.
Just two months ago in the Bronx, a police chase resulted in 15 police bullets killing Brian Mulkeen, a plainclothes officer, and Antonio Williams, a civilian whom the police had stopped during a patrol. Officer Mulkeen did not have his body camera on, but the other five officers on the scene had their cameras on. Although Commissioner O'Neill said in October that the NYPD will end up releasing the footage from the body-worn cameras that show the moments leading up to the shooting, no video footage has been released to the public as of yet. The information reported from Intro 1136-2018 would not only give families like Kawaski's, Williams' and Mulkeen's answers to the questions that remain but also provide them with a small amount of closure. And right now, they have neither.
I also recommend the following departmental body-worn camera policy changes: 1) share footage with CCRB and District Attorneys in the same timeframe as federal and state authorities - 24 hours; 2) reduce the timeframe used to disseminate footage to the public; 3) allow for the release unedited footage to the family and/or the public; 4) provide equal access of the footage to the family and the members of service.
Accountability and transparency are at the heart of Intro 1136-2018. It is important that we respect our men and women in blue, and provide them the tools they need to do their job. We must also ask that they respect the civilians whom they police. Our communities and the police will be better off if we hold our officers to that standard.
I would like to thank Council Member Lancman for co-sponsoring this legislation. I would like to also thank a few staff for helping me prepare for today's hearing, including Nick E. Smith, First Deputy Public Advocate of Policy, Michelle Kim, Director of Legislation, Crystal Hudson, First Deputy Public Advocate of Community Engagement, Rama Issa-Ibrahim, Deputy Public Advocate of Justice, Health Equity and Safety, and Darian Harley, Community Organizer for Justice, Health Equity and Safety. Again, I thank the Council for hosting this hearing today, and would be happy to answer any questions.
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