The New York City Council is considering whether to give the watchdog agency overseeing the NYPD direct access to officers’ body-worn camera footage — a move that could empower staff to conduct more comprehensive investigations into members of the country’s largest police department.
That access would be a game changer for the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which has often had to endure long delays to get body camera footage — and sometimes never gets it at all. If passed, the legislation would put New York City on a par with cities like Chicago and Washington D.C, where investigators already have direct access to police body-worn camera footage.
The measure would allow CCRB staff to log directly into the NYPD’s database of body-worn camera video to search for the footage they need to investigate complaints of misconduct.
At a committee hearing Monday, CCRB Director Jonathan Darche said it doesn’t make sense to have police control access to evidence of their own potential misconduct.
“The most important piece of evidence we can find is in the hands of the people being investigated,” he said. “Civilians will have less confidence knowing that we are only getting footage [the police department] has passed on to us.”
CCRB data show that body camera video has a substantial impact on the outcome of police misconduct investigations. In 70% of complaints that the agency fully investigated with body camera footage in 2021, investigators were able to determine whether or not officers had violated policy. But when investigators didn’t have body camera footage, they were only able to tell if officers followed NYPD guidelines in 29% of fully investigated cases.
Direct access could greatly increase efficiency for an agency struggling to keep up with a massive backlog of complaints about excessive force, racial profiling and other types of police misconduct.
In a prepared statement, the NYPD’s director of legislative affairs said the department “does not…
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