Footage pulled from police bodycams is not private, a New York appeals court has ruled.
The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association sued Mayor Bill de Blasio and the NYPD last year, alleging violations of the state’s Civil Rights Law 50-A — which bars the video from being made public because it’s part of an officer’s personnel record.
But the Appellate Division-First Department Tuesday upheld a lower court’s ruling, saying edited portions of the footage could be made public without a hearing.
“We find that given its nature and use, the body-worn-camera footage at issue is not a personnel record covered by the confidentiality and disclosure requirements,” the Tuesday order reads. “The purpose of body-worn-camera footage is for use in the service of other key objectives of the program, such as transparency, accountability, and public trust-building.”
The NYPD released its first-ever bodycam footage of a police-involved killing in September 2017.
The tense 48-minute video showed the fatal shooting of Miguel Antonio Richards, of the Bronx, after he threatens cops with a knife and a fake gun.