By Demian Bulwa
The San Francisco Chronicle
OAKLAND — In a Bay Area first, a fatal shooting by police in East Oakland was captured on video — not by a bystander with a camcorder or a smart phone but by the officer himself, who wore a city-issued camera on his chest.
Oakland police officials will not say what the footage from Sept. 25 depicts, citing an ongoing investigation. But the fact that the shooting was captured at all illustrates a profound change in law enforcement, with officers increasingly strapping on cameras along with their guns, radios and handcuffs.
The incident is already raising thorny questions, principally this: When an officer films his own killing of a suspect, should that officer be allowed to review the footage before making a statement to investigators?
Then there’s this: In the weeks and months ahead, will the video be made available to the public or the media?
The shooting happened shortly before 5 p.m. on the 9900 block of Cherry Street. Police officials said the trouble began when two officers, who have not been identified, pulled over a car for an unspecified violation, only to watch the passenger flee on foot.
One officer caught the suspect, who had a gun and drugs, and shot him during a struggle, police said. The department has refused to identify the man, and the Alameda County coroner will not give his name without police permission.
At some point, the officer had turned on the camera, which is about the size of a pager and was clipped to his chest, by sliding down a lens cover.
“The officer was threatened with a loaded gun. He feared for his life,” said the officer’s attorney, Terry Leoni, who has not seen the footage. She said the officer’s partner did not witness the shooting.
As in all officer-involved shootings in Oakland, this one is being investigated by city homicide detectives, internal affairs investigators and the district attorney’s office. But the case quickly proved to be unusual.
Barred from viewing
After the shooting, neither the officer nor his partner was allowed to view the footage from the camera before speaking to investigators, said sources familiar with the matter.
That led to a dispute, the sources said, over whether the department followed policies adopted after the city bought 350 wearable cameras late last year from Vievu of Seattle for $540,000.
Oakland patrol officers who were given cameras are expected to record all of their stops and arrests. In typical situations, they are allowed to watch their footage, but only after filing an initial report, said Officer Johnna Watson, a department spokeswoman.
The policy does not specifically say what should happen after an officer-involved shooting, Watson said. However, she said, officials ultimately decided the officers in the Sept. 25 shooting should have been able to view the video first.
“This is the most serious situation you can face in law enforcement,” Watson said. “Why would we want to give cameras to our officers and then tell them we’re not going to let you see what you’ve just done?
“This is not a tool to work against us,” she said, “but a tool to help us, to bring clarity to what happened in a situation.” She added, “You can’t change the facts of a video.”
Opposing access
Police watchdogs were surprised to hear of Oakland’s position — that the officers should have been allowed to view the video first - saying it seemed to violate basic investigatory principals.
John Burris, an Oakland attorney who specializes in police misconduct cases and supports use of the body cameras, said officers who shoot suspects should not have access to such a video.
“Absolutely not,” Burris said. “I think it’s contrary to the importance of the video. If you view the video beforehand, you have an opportunity to change your story to match the video.”
Michael Risher, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney in San Francisco, said, “In any investigation, it is not a good practice to show a tape to a witness before an interview. ... I think any police officer will tell you that.”
Viewing the tape
Such a viewing not only gives a witness a chance to fabricate, Risher said, but also “creates a substantial chance that the witness will disregard, or simply fail to report, things that don’t show up on the tape. Seeing the tape affects their memory.”
The debate, while unique, is not without precedent. In some cities, police unions have negotiated for officers to be given the right to review evidence, including surveillance footage and dispatch logs, before making a statement about a shooting.
Leoni, the Oakland officer’s attorney, declined to discuss the dispute. But she said that, in general, “it’s hard to have a hard-and-fast rule in terms of these videos. Every situation and every officer is very different.”
Shootings are “always a very emotional thing for the officers,” Leoni said. “At times, some officers are better able to deal with that than others, and better able to recall the events.”
Risher said that the video is unquestionably a public record, but that police may claim an exemption that protects records that are part of an active investigation. The privacy interests of the dead man’s family may also be a factor, he said, if the footage is graphic.
Providing evidence
Vievu says more than 1,100 agencies across the country are using its chest cameras. The devices are used to record incidents such as traffic stops, sobriety tests, arrests and interviews, and do not allow officers to view or erase footage while in the field.
Police commanders in Bay Area cities that have bought the cameras — including Brentwood, Campbell and Union City — say the devices gather valuable evidence while providing a video record that can clear an officer if misconduct allegations arise.
Police watchdogs also like the cameras as a tool for accountability, but say departments must adopt strict policies governing when officers should turn on the cameras, how footage must be stored, and who has access to it.
Heidi Traverso, director of business development at Vievu, said the Oakland police shooting is the second known to have been recorded by a chest camera.
In June, an officer in Page, Ariz., had his Vievu camera rolling when he fatally shot a 50-year-old domestic violence suspect during a struggle. The officer was cleared of wrongdoing.
Copyright 2011 San Francisco Chronicle