This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Police departments would be required to turn on body cameras and keep the recordings for at least 30 days under a bill introduced Tuesday.
HB386, sponsored by Rep. Dan McCay, R-Riverton, seeks to set statewide standards for the use of body cameras and the retention of the recordings. McCay also plans to set up a series of grants to law enforcement agencies to equip officers with the cameras.
The bill would require law enforcement to wear the body cameras in a conspicuous location and officers to record encounters with citizens in an "uninterrupted manner."
It would require officers to use the body cameras when serving any warrant at a private residence. If an officer entered a home without a warrant, the officer would have to notify occupants he or she was using a body camera unless the homeowner asked that the camera be turned off.
The recordings would have to be retained by the law-enforcement agency for at least 30 days but no longer than 180 days. Those that might be used as evidence in a case would have to be kept for at least 90 days or until an investigation was complete, and those that were evidence in a criminal case would have to be kept until the case ran its course.
If a recording was altered or deleted, or if the officer failed to record an encounter in a criminal matter, juries and judges would be instructed to presume that the events that took place were favorable to the defendant.
A separate bill in the Senate being sponsored by Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, seeks to define what recordings could be publicly released under Utah's open-records law. Another bill released Tuesday would set up a task force to study the use of force by police officers in the wake of several high-profile police shootings in the state and incidents across the country.
Twitter: @RobertGehrke