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Should Police be Forced to Release Body Cam Videos? Gov. Brown Must Decide

Publication: San Francisco Chronicle

In the frenetic video, Oakland police officers rush toward a gray BMW after laying a spike strip under the tires. Demouria Hogg, 30, is asleep at the wheel, with a pistol allegedly on the passenger seat, after unsuccessful efforts to wake him with a bullhorn.

There are shouts of “Get your hands up!” and “Don’t move!” An officer breaks the driver’s window. Within seconds, another officer fires a Taser at Hogg, and a third, Nicole Rhodes, shoots him with a gun, before he is pulled through the busted glass, fatally wounded.

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While Oakland and San Jose generally keep such footage under wraps, San Francisco is more transparent. After an officer fires a gun, the body cam footage is typically shown within 10 days at a town hall meeting. Moreover, some police officials in the region have released footage selectively, when it vindicates officers who have come under fire.

Refusal to release video in a timely fashion “has very much eroded public trust between communities and law enforcement,” said Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, who wrote the bill. “Why are we spending millions of taxpayer dollars on body cameras and (storing) the video footage if nobody is going to be able to see it?”