What to Do If the Police Won’t Release Body Camera Footage
A growing number of municipalities require police officers to wear body cameras at all times. This footage can be incredibly important for those who have their civil rights violated by the police—but what do you do if the police refuse to grant you access to the footage? We can help.
When a police officer has handled you with excessive force, having the right legal team by your side is crucial. Our excessive force law firm, the Law Offices of Dale K. Galipo, helps victims of police brutality fight for justice and seek closure. Our team of excessive force attorneys is led by attorney Dale K. Galipo, who has spent over two decades fighting for victims of police abuse. Call our police misconduct law firm at 818-347-3333 to find out how we can help you.
How Hard is It to Get Footage?
Body camera footage is a crucial piece of evidence in excessive force cases. This footage has been used time and time again to question officers’ versions of events, which often differ dramatically from what footage shows to have actually happened. Body camera footage shows, without bias or slant, an officer’s actions and the actions that allegedly led to the force or abuse being questioned.
Perhaps that’s why it is so difficult for victims to actually get their hands on body camera footage. This is a national issue, not just a California issue—in one in-depth report, it was found that of 101 police killings, body camera footage was only released for 33 of the cases. For the remaining 68 cases, the footage had been withheld or never existed in the first place. When journalists reached out to the police departments holding the footage, they were turned away, told it did not exist, ignored entirely, or offered the footage for a fee. When victims are up against this, working with excessive force lawyers can make a significant difference in how much progress they make.
Your Rights as a Victim
In California, the California Public Records Act protects the public’s right to see most body camera footage. The state considers this footage to be public property unless it violates a person’s privacy or interferes with an ongoing investigation. The state allows people to request footage via the CDCR Public Records Portal.
Your rights on paper are often quite different from your rights in reality. Forty-five days is a long time, and it gives police departments plenty of time to cover their tracks and circle the wagons. While this may sound pessimistic, it’s simply how these situations often play out. Excessive force attorneys have countless tales of very obvious cases of misconduct in which other officers and the violator’s own police department protected them at all costs.
Securing Body Camera Footage
Generally, body camera footage is uploaded to a separate server after captured. This ensures that officers cannot delete the footage on their own, but there still are plenty of opportunities for others with access to tamper with it.
If you put in a formal request to have the footage released to you and you are ignored, outright denied the footage, or told that the footage is corrupt or nonexistent, you must take action quickly. There’s a chance that the footage is still available, but you’ll likely have to force the police department’s hand by going through legal channels to request it. An excessive force lawyer can send a spoliation letter to remind the department that they must preserve all evidence related to a potential case, including body camera footage.
What if the footage truly is corrupt or missing? The excessive force law firm handling your case will look into other options. Digital forensic experts may be able to trace activity on the server holding camera footage to see if it was ever uploaded, who accessed it, and if (and how) it was damaged. Even if this does not undo the loss of the footage, it may show that the footage was intentionally deleted or corrupted because it supported your case.
Find Out How the Law Offices of Dale K. Galipo Can Help You
We understand how frustrating it can be to try to hold police officers accountable when you hit challenges at every turn. You don’t have to go through this alone—let us help. Call our police misconduct law firm at 818-347-3333 or fill out our online contact form to get started.
