From Columbia Journalism Review: Police departments across Colorado, like their counterparts around the country, are rapidly embracing the use of body-mounted cameras worn by officers. While the move is generally applauded as a government-accountability measure, it raises a serious question: When and how will members of the public and the press have access to the footage?
Widespread use of the cameras is a relatively new phenomenon, and there don’t appear to be any disputes yet over access to the footage. But the varying policies being announced around the state are a reminder of something transparency advocates and media watchdogs have often complained about: Law enforcement officials here have broad discretion to withhold information that in other states might be public, and the courts take a deferential attitude to decisions made by local departments.
“Records of official action,” like arrest reports, are generally public. But state law authorizes local police to decide whether to release a wide range of other records on a case-by-case basis, and to withhold them if they believe release would be “contrary to the public interest.”
As a result, those decisions too often have “nothing to do with the public interest” and everything to do “with police interests,” says John Ferrugia, an investigative reporter for Denver’s ABC affiliate, KMGH-TV 7News.
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