To see or not to see?
It was hard not to notice the dramatic contrasts in two recent cases involving law enforcement video. In one, State Highway Patrol footage of the ticketing of a High Point legislator was released to a Charlotte television station in only a matter of days. In the other, Winston-Salem police are still fighting tooth and nail against the release of footage related to the death of a man while in custody.
Certainly, the circumstances were starkly different. On Nov. 30, High Point Rep. Cecil Brockman was pulled over and ticketed in Archdale for not wearing a seat belt. Brockman, who is black, said he was racially profiled. On Dec. 9, Travis Nevelle Page died after being handcuffed by police in Winston-Salem. Police say Page, who matched the description of someone who allegedly had fired a gun, became unresponsive and later died at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. They also say they found cocaine on Page. The case raised concerns in some corners of the community because Page was black and sensitivity justifiably has been heightened nationwide in cases of unarmed black men dying during encounters with police.
Based on what we know, the officers appear to have acted responsibly. They say they tried to revive Page and gave him drug-overdose medication. But the cloak of secrecy only raises questions. Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines and three City Council members have called for body camera footage of the incident to be made public. So has a group of local clergy. But police Chief Barry Rountree and District Attorney Jim O’Neill say they won’t release the footage while an investigation is ongoing.
As dissimilar as they may be, both cases demonstrate an excruciating lack of clarity and consistency. And law enforcement’s ability to see the footage — and decide what to do with it — when others may not. In Greensboro, police cite state law in classifying the video footage as a personnel record. Was it not a personnel record in the case of the troopers who stopped Brockman? If so, how could WBTV obtain the footage so easily in a public records request? Or will police release video only when it flatters them?
More importantly, wasn’t video billed as a tool for building community trust here when it was first adopted and paid for, in large measure, with taxpayer money?
The city has requested state legislation on the matter but so far, lawmakers have taken no action. (Ironically, Brockman co-sponsored a bill last summer that would have made bodycam footage public.) Noting her concern over police-community relations, Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan and the Greensboro Police Officers Association have pressed the city attorney to find ways to release bodycam footage absent a change in state law. Meanwhile, the scenario in Winston-Salem almost certainly will repeat itself as more agencies add cameras throughout the state.
Our sister newspaper, the Winston-Salem Journal, sounded hopeful only weeks ago when the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office announced plans to deploy bodycams. In a Nov. 25 editorial, titled “Trust through technology,” the Journal said “it will be good to have the camera footage when a controversy arises.” But not if the public can’t see it.
We expressed similar hopes more than a year ago. Now we’re feeling Winston-Salem’s pain.
