Utah needs to set standards so police know when to turn on body cameras, whom they should film and how long they should keep video, a state lawmaker said Wednesday.
Rep. Daniel McCay, R-Riverton, told lawmakers on an interim law enforcement committee that he's working with police to come up with standards that lawmakers may consider in 2016.
McCay sponsored a bill earlier this year that would have addressed many of those issues, but it died during the legislative session. At the Wednesday meeting, it was clear that lawmakers still have concerns about body-camera technology to hash out.
Among them, McCay said, is the major issue of how long videos should be kept. The images are kept in large digital files that cost a lot to store.
Lawmakers also need to set rules about what recordings are public and when cameras should be activated.
"We certainly don't want to train our officers to reach for the button on their camera before they reach for their weapon in a life-or-death situation," McCay said, noting that some early camera models don't have the battery life to stay on all day.
There was also the question of who should be recorded. McKay pointed out that confidential informants play an important role, but recording them could put informants, and the entire law enforcement process, "in a difficult situation."
McKay also pointed out that body cameras raise the issue of when or whether to record in people's homes, and who would have access to those videos.
"Should your neighbor, who is curious about what happened at your house Saturday night, be able to [request] the record of what happened?" McKay asked. "When you're going into a home, you deal with privacy elements that you don't normally deal with."
Several lawmakers on the panel said they don't want to pass too many regulations because they're afraid it might cause police to decide it's not worth using the cameras.
A UtahPolicy poll in late August showed that more than 80 percent of Utahns want police officers to wear cameras.
Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clearfield, said cameras are an important tool for police, but he worried that lawmakers might be too heavy-handed with guidelines.
"For us to come in and throw a bunch of mandates — we're the group that's always screaming about the federal government mandating everything down to us and now we're mandating everything down to the local agencies," Ray said.
Every law enforcement agency "has a different mechanism" Ray said. Right now, agencies that have adopted body cameras — and more and more are doing so, including the two largest police departments in the state — set their own policies.
Rather than move too quickly, Ray said, it might be better to set basic requirements and let police work out the best policy for their own departments.
Law enforcement agencies have increasingly been releasing footage from deadly shootings, in the spirit of accountability and transparency. But Sen. Daniel Thatcher, R-West Valley City, said he didn't think the video recordings should be public records available to the media.
For example, Thatcher said, the videos might show someone in a medical situation and releasing it might violate federal health privacy laws, or the footage might depict someone's private, painful moments.
"We shouldn't be broadcasting the last moments of life. We shouldn't be broadcasting people in their worst moments that they've experienced. This is something that should be used in a courtroom, and we have precedent for this already," Thatcher said, pointing to how the Children's Justice Center records are not made public.
Sen. Kay McIff, R-Richfield, who used to be a district judge, voiced his concern that body cameras could become essential to prosecution.
"So, if you don't have the film, you don't have a prosecutable offense. That's almost what it's become with speeding and radar," he said. "If you don't have the radar, you don't have a case. So our entry into this arena has to be very cautious."
Lawmakers didn't take any action on the issue Wednesday, but said they plan to keep discussing it.
Gov. Gary Herbert, a Republican, said earlier this month that he'd like to see officers outfitted with body cameras and cameras in patrol vehicles to keep everyone involved in a police encounter honest.
The Utah Department of Public Safety and police departments in St. George and West Valley City have decided to issue body cameras to all officers.
Tribune reporter Michael McFall contributed to this report
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