Margaret Barthel
The Montgomery County Council has passed a new bill governing the internal handling of police body-worn camera footage. The legislation, which arose after the delayed release of video showing two Montgomery County police officers yelling at a young Black boy, passed unanimously on Tuesday.
“We all want to make sure that an incident like the one in Silver Spring never happens again and that we’re made aware of how officers are using our authority and our tax dollars,” said Council President Tom Hucker, the lead sponsor on the legislation.
Councilmembers Will Jawando, Hans Riemer, Evan Glass, Nancy Navarro, and Craig Rice, and Council Vice-President Gabe Albornoz co-sponsored the bill.
The measure, Bill 18-21 Police – Internal Affairs Procedures and Reporting Requirements, requires that officers wear cameras whenever they’re in uniform (currently, plainclothes officers who don’t typically wear body cameras don’t always have access to them in situations where they are in uniform).
The bill also puts in place a process for randomized internal affairs reviews of body-worn camera footage, including defining the instances where the police department’s internal affairs division is required (broadly: when an officer uses force, when an incident involves a minor, when an officer is on the scene of a death or a serious injury, or when an officer has possibly discriminated against someone or committed a crime).
In all of those circumstances, the bill requires that information about the investigation be immediately reported to the police chief, who then has 24 hours to pass the information on to the county executive and county council. The chief must also alert the State’s Attorney if there is a possibility that an officer committed a crime.
For other matters, the bill requires the internal affairs division to report body worn camera findings to the police chief monthly. Every quarter, the chief will have to notify the council and county executive of any internal affairs investigations that have been going on for longer than 180 days.
It also requires that the police department record whenever footage is accessed or redacted.
According to a county report on the measure, the law will cost $1 million to implement in fiscal year 2022, and may cost the county as much as $3.3 million over six years. The cost includes an additional administrative position, more than half a million dollars in additional body cameras, and the expense of user licenses.
A study of the bill’s potential racial equity and social justice impact — conducted by the county — found that it will likely “reduce racial inequities in policing and policing outcomes by holding more police officers accountable for misconduct and racially biased policing,” though the study notes that the research on body-worn cameras’ track record of eliminating racial disparities is mixed.
Bill 18-21 comes following the passage of a suite of police reform bills by the Maryland General Assembly earlier this year, and is in line with a Maryland requirement that all state law enforcement agencies define and implement a process for reviewing and investigating body worn camera footage by 2023.
In testimony before the county council, the county executive’s office, the NAACP, and the police union supported the original version of the legislation. Advocates with Jews United for Justice and the Silver Spring Justice Coalition, however, expressed concerns about the legislation unless it was amended. The groups called for inclusion of a process for release of body worn camera footage to the public, stronger civilian oversight, a clearer definition of what was meant by “random” reviews of body worn camera footage, and the exemption of the legislation from the collective bargaining process with the police union. Advocates also called for all officers, including plainclothes and undercover officers, to have body cameras.
The final version of the measure responds to some of those concerns: It reinforces the definition of “random” review, requires the reporting of demographic information on residents involved in investigated incidents, and clarifies that body cameras would be worn by plainclothes officers if they are wearing police insignia on duty or are in uniform.
The process for the police department’s review and investigation of body worn camera footage came under scrutiny earlier in the year, when the department released footage of two officers berating a 5-year-old Black boy after he ran out of school — more than a year after the incident took place in January 2020. The video was shared with the county council just 23 minutes before it was released to the public, according to a council statement at the time.
In a tense hearing before the county council, Chief Marcus Jones admitted that the police received a complaint about the incident the same month it took place, but the internal affairs division didn’t question the two officers until months later, in August. Jones said he didn’t see the footage of the incident until months after that, in December — almost a year after it happened.
Those revelations ultimately prompted the introduction of Bill 18-21.
“Beyond the egregious and disturbing conduct displayed by the officers involved, it is unacceptable that this incident, which generated international news, was not reported by MCPD to either the County Executive and the County Council until over a year after it occurred, and the video was not shared with us for many weeks despite requests from Councilmembers,” wrote Hucker in a letter announcing the introduction of the bill for council consideration in the spring.
“Absent this legislation, serious incidents like the one at ESS can continue to be hidden from oversight and public view, further eroding community trust, undercutting our goals of increasing public confidence in MCPD, and making it very difficult to perform our oversight role,” he continued.
Previously:
Package Of Maryland Police Reform Bills Heads To Gov. Hogan’s Desk
