Police withhold videos despite vows of transparency

[damnedifIknow]

Autumn Steele and her husband, Gabriel, were fighting again, so he called 911. A police officer sped to their home, pulled out his gun and then — frightened by the family dog — opened fire, killing Autumn with a bullet to her chest.

Since the Jan. 6 shooting, Steele’s family has battled police in Burlington, Iowa, to see 28 minutes of body camera video recorded by the two officers who responded that day. Police have declared the videos confidential, saying the shooting was tragic but reasonable, given that the dog “attacked.” State investigators have released a 12-second clip from the videos, but Steele’s relatives say it raises more questions than it answers.

“I deserve to know what happened to my daughter. The public deserves to know,” said Steele’s mother, Gail Colbert. “How can they keep this from us?”

*Nationwide, police have shot and killed 760 people since January, according to a Washington Post database tracking every fatal shooting. Of those, The Post has found 49 incidents captured by body camera, or about 6 percent.

Just 21 of those videos — less than half — have been publicly released. And in several of those cases, the footage, as in Burlington, was severely cut or otherwise edited.

*What point is there of even doing this if they are going to be treated this way? Why even spend the money on these cameras?” said Burlington Mayor Shane McCampbell, who has called on police to release video of the Steele shooting. He noted that police promised greater openness last year when they petitioned the city to buy body cameras.

If the videos “are going to be a secret, no one is being held accountable,” McCampbell said. “And that was the point.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/10/08/police-withhold-videos-despite-vows-of-transparency/

[xenoturkey]

1. A gross indifference to justice

Grrr

ALL LEO's should wear body cams at ALL times uploaded to a third party server accessible to the public that can't be deleted.

What a travesty of justice. Makes me sick.

[GoneFishin]

2. It's a great idea. This makes me sick too. The mere fact that the guy peed his pants and drew on

the family dog makes him unqualified to carry a loaded gun, the goddamned coward.