Kansas lawmakers to consider use of police body cameras more than a year after Ferguson

Kansas lawmakers are hoping for a do-over after last spring’s fizzled attempt at a statewide policy on police body cameras, an issue that draws strong reactions more than a year after the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.

“I see this as a win-win for everybody,” said state Rep. John Rubin, a Shawnee Republican, who thinks cameras are good for the public and important for reducing misconduct allegations against police.

Rubin will hold a hearing next week at a meeting of the joint committee he leads on corrections and juvenile justice oversight. The effort has supporters on both sides of the aisle, even if legislators don’t agree on all the particulars.

Sen. David Haley, a Kansas City, Kan., Democrat, is adamant that every officer wear a body camera and have it running during interactions with the public.

The videos should be kept for 90 days, he said, and he thinks privacy issues for the police and the public can be worked out.

Objections to body-worn cameras are “archaic and disappointing,” Haley said. The importance of video evidence goes back more than two decades to the Rodney King incident in 1991, he said.

The committee needs to hash out whether to require all levels of law enforcement in Kansas to use body-worn cameras, how to pay for the equipment and rules about the storage and access of recordings, Rubin said.

In Missouri, lawmakers at the last session of the General Assembly were so opposed to a statewide requirement for body-worn cameras that proposals were introduced to prohibit the state from mandating them.

Missouri Rep. Galen Higdon, a St. Joseph Republican, said decisions about body cameras should be left to cities and counties and their law enforcement departments. Serious privacy issues, particularly for officers, haven’t been resolved, he said.

For Rubin, there are two major practical holdups, but he thinks they can be addressed: first, how to help pay for the equipment and second, how to manage video storage and public access.

No fan of “unfunded mandates,” Rubin wants to identify a funding source before backing legislation.

One idea, he said, is change the civil asset forfeiture law so that those assets go into a state fund dedicated to law enforcement expenditures, such as body cameras.

Civil asset forfeiture allows county prosecutors to seize assets from a crime investigation. Some see a conflict of interest in prosecutors retaining those assets to help fund their offices.

The issue of video storage and access is controversial. Many in law enforcement say videos of police interactions must be protected for use in investigations and prosecution. Privacy advocates want protection for individuals. Others, particularly the news media, argue for more open access.

Sen. Greg Smith, Overland Park Republican and chairman of the Senate corrections and juvenile justice committee, objected during the 2015 session to a state mandate, and he still thinks it’s the wrong course.

Police officers aren’t opposed to body cameras, he said, but they have concerns about the state telling law enforcement agencies how to use the equipment.

“My concern is the safety of the officers and the general public,” he said. “I really firmly believe these are issues for the communities.”

Smith, too, is opposed to a state mandate that’s not paid for. The matters of storage and access of recordings should be uniform statewide, he said.

A Senate proposal last session exempted recordings from the Kansas Open Records Act. Another proposal would place the recordings under the criminal investigation provisions of the open records act.

Stan Ross, CEO of Digital Ally, a police camera company based in Lenexa, said the tide turned several years ago on acceptance of in-car camera systems by many police departments and local governments, and the same is happening with body-worn cameras.

The company has sold more than 50,000 in-car systems and 7,000 body cameras around the country, Ross said.

The city of Ferguson purchased Digital Ally equipment, and local customers include Raytown, Raymore, Roeland Park, Lansing and Leawood. For many departments, the big issue is how to pay for the equipment, Ross said.

“No matter what side of the badge you’re on, it’s so important for clarity,” he said.

Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kan., recently were awarded a $352,500 federal grant to purchase body cameras, although there were strings attached, including a 50-50 funding match and the implementation of a training plan.

Rubin said even without lawmaker support for a statewide mandate to require body cameras, legislators still could address rules for all levels of law enforcement — state, city and county — including when cameras should be turned on by officers and how long recordings should be kept.

Rubin said he often uses Ferguson as an example of the importance of video evidence.

“If a body camera had been used in the incident with Michael Brown, it would have disclosed early on what investigators determined,” Rubin said, “that it was not an excessive use of force and that the individual unfortunately shot was rushing the officer. And it might have avoided the riots and unrest.”

Here’s an example of a police body camera video. Albuquerque, N.M., officers use a taser and arrest a man who was trying to carjack a couple as they left a Wednesday night church service.

This story was originally published October 30, 2015 at 6:43 PM with the headline "Kansas lawmakers to consider use of police body cameras more than a year after Ferguson."