"The Police doesn't release the videos to the public. They do release them to Congress. There are legitimate reasons not to release them to the public, including the fact that the media will sensationalize them to make the Police look far more dangerous than the statistics actually reflect."

Would you still want videos withheld from the public?

After all, BART is a public agency. We are not babies who need to be protected by The Master Director because we are "the lowly citizen." That's not how it works in America.

If the police have videos of X person robbing Y person, with no police around, then I don't mind if they keep those videos private.

It's about whether Y person will get justice.

Police actions need to be transparent. There are strong reasons to release recordings with police actions in them.

But if the recordings are unrelated to any police officers or police actions, then all of that goes away. It's completely fine for police to not release footage of two random people interacting. And that scenario is what is analogous to BART surveillance videos.

  two random people interacting