LAPD would delete nearly 12 million body camera videos under proposed policy change

This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.

The Los Angeles Police Department is seeking a policy change that would allow millions of videos collected from officers’ body-worn and dashboard-mounted cameras to be deleted, leaving oversight officials worried that useful footage might be lost in the purge.In a presentation to the Board of Police Commissioners on Tuesday, the LAPD’s chief information officer, John Furay, detailed new data retention guidelines that would allow certain footage to be destroyed after five years.

Exceptions would be made for videos from all police shootings, as well as any potential evidence in a court case or internal investigation.Under the current policy, all footage collected by the department is retained indefinitely.California In a video clip that has circulated widely online, Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton is heard making allegations against activist Jason Reedy during a Martin Luther King Jr.

Day event.If the new guidelines were implemented, Furay estimated that the department would destroy about 11.8 million body-worn videos that no longer serve a purpose.Older videos from dashboard cameras that are still stored on magnetic videotape would also be expunged, he said.

But in both cases, he added, the deletion would be done only after first checking with investigators and the department’s legal affairs section.Several members of the civilian oversight panel, which sets LAPD policies, expressed concern that the proposed policy wasn’t clear enough.Commissioner Rasha Gerges Shields said it lacked guardrails against the inadvertent deletion of pertinent records.She said the proposal gave the impression that the department was “mandating ourselves to delete it as soon as the case is done.” She also asked about how videos that could be used for training purposes or other reasons would be preserved.She asked to table a vote on the matter and told the department to report back after it had...