EDITORIAL: Body cameras would increase transparency, improve confidence in police

The constitutional right of citizens to photograph or otherwise record police officers who are working in plain sight, in public places, seems to be under assault in some recent cases. Here are three examples:

In September 2014, a Pennsylvania man named Michael Grattieri got into a dispute with man who frequently parked in front of his Ford City house and a police officer. Grattieri made it clear he was recording the incident with his cellphone, and nothing happened until a month later — after he had posted the video on Facebook. Only then did the same officer appear at his house and arrest him for violating the Wiretap Act, and for disorderly conduct.

In September 2015, a Connecticut man named Michael Picard, known to police as a regular protester, was filming state troopers operating a DUI checkpoint in West Hartford when the troopers confiscated his video camera. Neglecting to turn the camera off, they then inadvertently recorded themselves saying, “We gotta cover our ass” and apparently inventing criminal charges against him. The recording seems to show clear violations of Picard’s right to protest and his right to record the police in public, according to the Connecticut ACLU.

In September 2016, an Arkansas state representative named John Walker was arrested after ignoring commands by Little Rock police to stop filming a traffic stop. “I’m just making sure they don’t kill you,” Walker, 79, said to the man being stopped, Cedric Bell, 27. An officer said that Walker “kept talking over us in an antagonistic and provocative manner.”

Although the Arkansas incident looks to have been more potentially violent, the Connecticut case is in one sense more egregious, because the camera of the alleged perpetrator recorded what looks to any reasonable person like an attempted frame-up.

The state of Connecticut has made millions of dollars available to local police departments to supply officers with body cameras, but so far the response has been minimal, due in part to worries about how to pay for video storage costs. The delay is disappointing. Cameras might very well increase transparency, reduce violations of citizens’ rights and improve public confidence in the police.