D.C. mayor warns of big costs if city must release police body-camera video

By Aaron C. Davis, Washington Post, June 23, 2015

The District faces a new problem in rolling out body cameras to half its patrol officers this year, one that Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) said Tuesday could imperil the city’s balanced budget.

Bowser warned members of the D.C. Council that if they rebuff her request to keep body camera footage private, the city could see a bill of $1.5 million annually.

The liability could keep the city’s chief financial officer from certifying the budget, Bowser warned.

Debates about cost and privacy have led officials in more than a dozen states to propose restricting or withholding access to police body-camera footage from the public. Most major cities have gone that route, while some, including Seattle, have made blurry versions of all footage available over the Internet.

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