Under new guidelines, Minneapolis police officers must keep their body-worn cameras turned on while responding to an incident.
What We Know:
- Following the death of George Floyd, the Minneapolis Police Department has undergone heavy scrutiny for its policies. On Monday, Mayor Jacob Frey and Chief Medaria Arradondo announced that officers are no longer allowed to deactivate their body cameras to hold private conversations at any time during a response to an incident.
- According to CNN, the department has recently reformed a number of policies including the banning of chokeholds, re-examining the use of force policies, increased police misconduct investigations, and a new requirement to announce their presence before entering no-knock warrant situations.
- Chief Arradondo commented on the announcement saying, “We’ve seen as a community and as a police force, body camera footage increasingly plays a crucial role in understanding critical events in our community. Accountability is not achieved with any single solution, but changes like this move us toward an even more transparent approach to public safety and building trust with the communities we serve.”
- KDRV reports that the Minneapolis Police Department’s body-cam protocol first landed them in hot water during the 2019 murder trial of former Minneapolis officer Mohamed Noor, who was convicted of fatally shooting Justine Ruszczyk Damond. Damond had called 911 to report a possible sexual assault. When they arrived at the scene, police only turned on their cameras after Damond was dead and intermittently turned off their cameras to allegedly discuss how to handle the situation regarding an officer-involved death.
The new policy specifically requires police to activate body cameras prior to “any contact with a reporting person, victim, suspect or witness”.