Senate wants policies on police body cameras


  • April 8, 2015
  • /   Staff Reports
  • /   government

TALLAHASSEE — A Senate panel on Tuesday approved a bill that would require law-enforcement agencies to establish policies for the proper use of body cameras if the agencies allow officers to wear the devices.

The Senate Criminal Justice Committee unanimously passed the measure (SPB 7080), which would require law-enforcement agencies to establish policies and procedures addressing the proper use, maintenance and storage of body cameras and the data they record.

That includes training officers who use the cameras and performing "a periodic review of actual agency body-camera practices to ensure conformity with the agency's policies and procedures."

Currently, Florida law does not require police agencies to have policies governing the use of such technology.

"We're saying to law enforcement: 'OK, if you want to use 'em, this is what they have to be,' " committee chairman Greg Evers, R-Baker, said.

This year, the Pensacola Police began deploying body cameras throughout the force. In all 55 cameras will be deployed among PPD's uniform patrol. Neither the Escambia or Santa Rosa sheriff's offices use the cameras.

Capt. Tommi Lyter says the department is looking buying up to 90-95 of the cameras, “until everyone on patrol in uniform has one.” The second wave of cameras is likely to go to officers at Cordova Mall, motorcycle officers, the community policing unit. It will take through the end of summer to fully roll out the cameras, Lyter said earlier this year. PPD's cameras plug it into the in-car computer and transmit the video. The camera holds about eight hours of footage and the footage will be a public record. InWeekly outlined PPD's procedures for the cameras use here. Video of the PPD cameras in the field is here: [youtube id="YrF3rzLBkNI"]

Evers said the recordings would only be used when officers are performing their duties.

"It's only for law-enforcement activities," he said. "If by chance they happened to overhear another conversation … it's erased, there's no record of it, and it didn't happen. Because there is a privacy concern that's located in the bill and located here in this chamber that will see that that's the way it is."

Evers predicted the Senate would back the committee bill, which does not have a House companion.

Supporters of the measure include the Florida Sheriffs Association, the Florida Police Benevolent Association, the Florida Public Defender Association and the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.

According to the Police Benevolent Association, 13 Florida police departments use the cameras — the cities of Miami, Miami Beach, Cocoa, Daytona Beach, Daytona Beach Shores, Gulfport, Pensacola, Eustis, West Melbourne, Windermere and Rockledge. So do Palm Bay SWAT officers and the motorcycle officers at Florida State University.

Nine more police departments have put pilot programs in place to test their use — Clearwater, Fort Myers, Marianna, Orlando, Plant City, Sarasota, St. Petersburg, Tampa and West Palm Beach.

Pensacola Today Editor Shannon Nickinson and News Service of Florida writer Margie Menzel contributed to this report.

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