> Requests can be denied to protect a person’s safety or reputation, or if the recording is part of an active investigation.

As soon as there's a single subjective criteria by which footage can be denied, virtually all footage will be, period, the end. The "reputation" and "active investigation" parts make any concessions to the public completely and utterly worthless.

That's a strong statement, mostly because there's things implied in what you said that are not necessary to held true. For example, there's no reason we can't have a distinction between public release of a video, and allowing charged/affected parties (or their next of kin!) and their counsel to view the video privately at the police station for free (but restricted from recording). I think that would clear up the vast majority of problems, as the police could no longer falsely claim the footage needed to be preserved for some reason. If it was requested to be made public after that, and they refused, at least you then know what you're fighting for if you need to take it to court.

The police cannnot and should not be trusted to be the ones who decide matters of access. All video should be collected and dispersed by an independent citizen run board.

I think the point of the reputation bit is that there are probably other people in the video, too, and it might be their reputation that's at stake. Just because you're in the video doesn't mean that it's your reputation they're protecting.

Good point. A standard process and policy of anonymizing third parties would resolve this, but that takes effort, which means money. I would be okay with a nominal fee per requested released video to deal with this, such as $50 (or an hour at the prevailing hourly wage of a technician), otherwise the legislature should allocate funds for such. There is a balancing act.

> if it's part of an investigation (makes sense to me)

This part seems curious to me. Isn't that exactly when a person "who can be seen or heard in it, along with their personal representatives" (e.g. accused person and lawyer) would need access to such footage? Perhaps there is some nuance here about what constitutes an active investigation?

"Active investigation" means a the pre-arrest phase of investigation. E.g., they send a cop by a suspected trap house but don't want to tip off the residents that they are under suspicion. Otherwise, a criminal organization would just request all the body cam footage each week to make sure they aren't being investigated (or change their tactics in response to the police movements).

If there's an actual arrest and trial, the Supreme Court case of Brady v. Maryland (1963) requires that the state hand over any exculpatory evidence [1]. The state has to go out of its way to hand over evidence -- even if the defendant doesn't know it exists.

[1] "Exculpatory" = "might show that you are innocent." There's a long line of cases that define how broad that definition is.

* I am not your lawyer. Go get a criminal defense lawyer.

"active investigation" means anything the police want it to mean. Don't pretend it's a legally binding term.

What you're talking about is evidence in a trial, which can still remain sealed, and has nothing to do with the public being able to view the footage.

Yes, you get access to evidence if it's going to be used against you. That's a whole separate thing.

(Orignally this was a reply to a reply of this comment that apparently got deleted.)

What if while arriving on scene to a burglary there is body camera footage from an officer that appears to show someone running off and away from the scene carrying [whatever was stolen] and from that footage one could possibly conclude that the personal doesn't look like the person the police decided to accuse and prosecute. This could be exculpatory evidence and help clear you of the charges. (Obviously the prosecutor is suppose to let the defendent and court know of any known exculpatory evidence, but what if the police choose to withhold it from the prosecutor/court or don't think anything of the footage? )

What if it isn't going to be used against but could be exculpatory?

Of course, it's illegal for them to withhold any exculpatory evidence.

If its not public, you have minimal chance of discovering it if it isn't provided, so while it is illegal for them to withhold it, you'll never know it existed and was withheld unless someone who does know of it -- almost certainly the police themselves, or the person shown in it (quite possibly, the real criminal, who would be revealing their own identity by coming forward) -- actively reveals it. So, illegal or not, it makes it much easier for them to get away with concealing exculpatory evidence.

I see two things with the reputation bit, both positive and negative:

If you release someone being arrested, and afterwards it is a case of mistaken identity or one is found not guilty, it can affect reputation. Arrest records are public, and even when it winds up being mistaken identity or a not guilty verdict, it impacts lives and jobs. Some folks would base their judgement on how you acted or where you were in that video.

In addition to things such as domestic violence (perhaps we should blur out faces of the victims, for example, and not show their naked bodies to the public).

On the other hand, some of these could damage the Officer's reputation, and I wonder if they could be denied for that reason.

So if the police officer's reputation would be ruined by evidence of them committing a crime, then the footage can't be released?

Sounds like the exact point to me, block camera footage that shows crimes of officers.