Kathmandu: NYC Mayor Adams’ administration pushed back Monday on several pending City Council bills that would require the NYPD to provide more detailed information on police encounters with civilians and make police body-camera footage more readily available to independent oversight bodies.
In testimony delivered to the Council, police department officials contended that some of the measures being sought would create an “insurmountable” level of bureaucracy if implemented — particularly when it comes to police body-camera footage, as reported by New York Daily News.
One of the bills being considered would require that the NYPD provide the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board with direct access to all body-camera footage — a drastic change in the status quo, which now only allows the CCRB access to footage through a request pertaining to matters under investigation.
Michael Clarke, director of the NYPD’s of legislative affairs unit, noted that the department would be unable to provide videos depicting cases sealed by a judge as well as videos containing images of sexual assault victims.
The rationale behind the bill is rooted in delays the CCRB has had in receiving access to footage and being supplied with footage later deemed irrelevant to its probes.
(News Source: New York Daily News)