Hubbard Township goes high-tech

SEE ALSO: Warning period ends for speeders in Hubbard Township

By SARAH LEHR

slehr@vindy.com

HUBBARD

“Pics or it didn’t happen.” So goes the refrain of the Internet age. “Video or it didn’t happen” may well be the latest thinking by advocates for transparency in policing.

Hubbard Township police are a week into using body cameras, made possible by a grant from the Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services. The OCJS provided $10,500, which went toward 12 body cameras.

Groups including the National Association for Advancement of Colored People and the Black Lives Matter movement have advocated for the use of police body cameras in the wake of incidents including the 2014 shooting death of 18-year old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.

This year, the U.S. Department of Justice granted $23 million to police departments across the country, as part of President Barack Obama’s pledge to put $75 million toward body cameras and training over the course of three years.

Sgt. Greg Tarr, who oversees the township’s fledgling body camera program, praised the cameras as a tool for transparency. Moreover, Tarr believes both officers and members of the public will behave better if they know their actions will be caught on video.

Township policy states that and that “whenever possible, officers should inform individuals that they are being recorded” and that officers must wear the cameras in a “conspicuous manner.” The township’s cameras, made by VIEVU, are small and rectangular. Officers have been clipping them to an outside loop sewn onto center of their shirts. Officers have responded positively to the cameras, Tarr said, though they’ve been adjusting to the minor annoyance of snagging the cameras with their seat belts.

Body cameras may be good news for transparency, but they also raise privacy concerns.

The American Civil Liberties Union supports police body cameras, provided that proper policies are in place regulating when officer can turn the cameras off or edit footage. Township policy stipulates that officers must document a reason if they fail to record an incident or if recording is interrupted. The police chief will investigate any complaints against officers when the officer did not record a situation. A supervisor will physically take the camera from an officer and take over downloading responsibility after an officer-involved shooting or another “serious incident,” according to township policy.

The ACLU also expressed concern that body cameras will become yet another tool of “mass surveillance.”

Since footage from body cameras will be subject to public records laws, township Police Chief Todd Coonce acknowledged a tricky balancing act between openness and privacy rights.

Though officers are not expected to risk their own safety to turn a camera on, township policy requires the activation of cameras in situations, including any response to a call for police service, domestic violence calls, traffic stops, use of force situations and anytime when a citizen asks the officer to record. Officers do not have to record casual conversations with members of the public and, in some cases, they may grant someone’s request not to be recorded in situations where the person “has a reasonable expectation of privacy,” such as in his or her own home.

Since township officers first donned the cameras last Thursday, they’ve been uploading roughly one and half hours of footage at the end of each shift, which amounts to 4.5 hours per day and is consistent with national averages, Tarr said. Each camera can hold 12 hours of footage.

This raises a logistical issue: Where does all this footage go and at what cost?

The initial cost of data storage was about $5,000, Tarr said. A tentative policy, which is pending approval by township trustees, outlines how long the department has to hold on to videos: five years for use of force, three years for an arrest or traffic accident, 90 days for a traffic stop or routine police report and 60 days for routine citizen contact. The township police department developed its footage retention policy to meet or exceed recommendations from the U.S. Department of Justice Community Oriented Policing Office, Tarr said.