Recommendation to Accept the Police Department’s Draft Policy for the Taser AXON Flex Body Cameras Prior to Deployment by the Police Department. (Police 3121)
We have Chief O'Leary here. Madam Mayor, council members. Paul Larry, chief of police. I brought up with me my escort for the evening as make sure he's the vice president of sales at Taser International. And I brought him because the last time I was before you, when we talked about the purchase of the cameras, some of you had some technical questions about the data security and storage. And I thought just in the event that there were any unanswered questions, it would be nice to have a representative from Taser here. You all saw the staff report that that I wrote. It was very brief and intentionally so. It was really just to introduce the policy, because we had discussed many of the issues with the cameras relative to the purchase of the cameras. As I mentioned in the staff report, we did do some research before drafting our policy. We looked at the ACP, the International Association of Chiefs of Police. They had a model policy that they put out. The Police Executive Research Forum had also set forth some recommendations that we took a look at. And then from our own area, we looked at the Fremont and the San Leandro Police Department policies, and the combination of all of those things led us to the draft that I put before you tonight. And I'm here to answer any questions or just any concerns you might have. So before we do that, can staff clarify what our role is in regards to this policy? I can try to do that. So the policy, the internal operational policies of the police department are the jurisdiction of the chief of police. The City Council. Has the ability to provide comments to the Chief of Police. He's asked. And solicited those. Comments, but it is really. The chief of. Police. Who has to. Adopt the. Policy. So he is here before you to get your input. So we will not be voting, accept or approve. We just get feedback. So I wanted to clarify that so that the public understands what our role is. Ultimately, what this policy is is up to the police department. All right, Councilor comments. And a mayor. Vice Mayor. I appreciate, chief, for Larry's answering questions, particularly on the access. The public access to is the record, the electronic record that is gathered by the body cam. And my understanding in the responses and I like the city attorney also to affirm this, is that the access to that by the public will comply with all state and federal laws that are in place just as it does for any other. Records request, the Alameda Police Department, is that correct? Yes. That is correct. Vice Mayor Matter. SC And it goes through the same channels as any other records requests to the police department? Yes. And then the second is more of a comment that I'd like you to consider is in the section on request for deletion for accidental recording. In. In certain. And certain regulations that deal with electronic records. Particularly in the Code of federal relations. At the federal level, there is a and a an assumption that you use a validated system, and that validated system does not preclude deletions. You can have deletions there mistakes. I mean, you can have mistakes, but they're preserved. And you do preserve the record as it's gathered and you delete it when the regular regulatory requirement says that you can dispense with with the document. My preference is that. Whether it's an accidental recording or not, it stays there until the document is deleted by its natural expert, its mandated expiration date by law, so that we don't get into an issue of someone accident deleting something that should not have been deleted. By a second mistake. Okay. You know, I just I struggle with that one a little bit. I on one level, I don't have any problem with what you're suggesting and keeping it until it hits its natural donation point. On the other hand, and I know this from. Talking to some other police officers and other agencies that literally sometimes is they've actually accidentally recorded a conversation that's prohibited in another section of the policy. I might have a conversation with one of you in the hallway and have my camera on. And if I if I accidentally record that, I would like to be able to say, you know, that was a mistake and delete it. As opposed to having that be out there for 90 days or six months or three years. And then I've also had officers tell me I left it and I was in the restroom, I was in the locker room changing. And I don't think we want that footage out there any longer than it needs to be. So that's that's kind of what I struggle with when I'm processing that. And I hope you understand. I do, yeah. And England, too. Just to follow up on the vice mayor's comments is I understand. The deletion. Can you remind me what section it is zero 57 for? Okay. It's for five over 7.4. Right. Okay. It's not. So the employee still doesn't get to make the decision of whether or not the accidental recording is deleted. That goes to this services division commander who reviews the file and either approves or denies the request. So. Is. I mean, does that not at least begin to address the. It could be accidentally deleted twice or. Well, to me, it's not an independent party or a disinterested party looking at it. Basically what we're looking at is two layers of review. If if if we leave the policy the way that it's written right now, the officer would request in writing that the recording be deleted and list the reason why the division commander would take a look at that. And if they approved it, it would go up to my second in command, a captain who would make the ultimate decision as to whether or not that that footage should be deleted. And I'm guess I'm looking at this just like I'm looking at all of the records. Do you ever destroy records that were mistakes? Probably not. Do you ever destroy? I guess the voice recording would probably be the nearest comparable to this. But if you made a mistake on a on a paper record or there was a mistake, an entry in a report that was written either on the computer or by hand, you don't destroy that original, you know? So what would happen if a mistake was made in a report and it was during the review process? The report's not final, so it's just like a draft. So a supervisor can return the report now electronically back. Back in the old days, when we when we handwrote them, you'd return it to the officer and say, you know, for a punctuation error or a grammar error or a factual error, you know, somebody you got a name wrong or location wrong. You need to you need to change that. Once the report becomes final and it's over at our shop, we call it frozen. That's it, then. Now, now you can only clean up a mistake by a supplemental report. So that can that same rule be? I guess you could say this applies. That's it. It won't be final until there's a review of it saying that it's this is the final record and we're going to send it to the store to to the server. Right. I mean, the difference is you can't modify the video. The video is what it is. A report that has an error can be corrected. The video is always whatever you've captured, you've captured. So you can't you can't really go back and modify it. You can't go you wouldn't want us to be able to modify the video, right? It would defeat the purpose. So either the video is allowed to exist, mistake or not, or or we go through this three layered process of getting reviews and final approval to delete a recording that two people removed from the recording agree is unnecessary . A locker room scene, a private conversation, things of that nature. I personally as the chief, I'm comfortable with that, with the because I've got to two layers of review removed from the actual recording. And I'm you know, I'm hoping that that you're all comfortable with that, too. I'm willing I'm willing to take a look at it. I'm just saying that that was the thought process that we I, I understand. That's my comment. Amber Ashcraft, thank. You and thank you for the information you've provided us with Chief Hilary. And I also e-mailed you earlier with some questions. So I want to raise two items that I think I actually raised before when you came to us for the authorization to purchase this equipment. And the first one is on from page one of the draft policy. And it is has to do this would be Section four or 50.4 system administrator responsibilities. And the fourth responsibility listed is policy and procedure review and evaluation. And you will recall not too long ago, we in the last administration, we approved the purchase and use of license plate readers, but the Council also requested that the policy be reviewed and evaluated just to see, you know, first year out, what could we do better? And I mean, I think every year there should be a review. So what I would like to see added to the language in this section, that policy and procedure review and evaluation take place no less than once every calendar year. And I think it's just the sort of thing again, council doesn't vote on this, but it's the sort of thing that on an annual basis you would come back before the council and just give us an overview of, you know, what your experience has been. So I'd appreciate your consideration of that. And then my second concern and again, I raised this before and it's something that the ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union in their white paper, had talked about and the Fremont Police Department policy that you provided us also, I thought articulated it very well. And what this is, is in situations where you could have a victim of rape or domestic abuse or some other sensitive crime who doesn't want to be recorded. And, you know, this person has already been victimized. We don't want to to further that. And so my my concern was, you know, do officers could they have some sort of discretion? And I'm just reading the the language. So I feel like two things. The city attorney doesn't like us using our phones at the desk, but this is really just reading. The Fremont policy says that officers may cease recording when encountering or interviewing a victim who is in a vulnerable position or who asked not to be video recorded. And and there's also other language in that same section of the Fremont policy and procedure for their body worn cameras that talks about sometimes you have someone who is a witness who's giving you information, who doesn't necessarily want to be seen on camera cooperating with the police and giving information. And if there wasn't that option to say, hey, I'll talk to you, but not if you're recording me, then you might not have that information to help you solve a crime. So what could you what could you tell us about that? So, first of all, I'm completely comfortable with adding the exact language in the Fremont policy regarding encountering or interviewing a victim who's in a vulnerable position. That's that's honestly, to me, that's an easy one. We've given the officers in in our policy a lot of discretion to record or to not record. And what what we were trying to avoid was to do to list so many specific incidents that it just became too much for them in that, you know, as their the sort of the dynamics of, you know, when you show up for a case and you've got people talking to you and different that they would, you know , I'm recording you but I'm not recording you and. We put it, we thought we might put them. Make it too confusing for them. Too much for them to have to process. But but to me, this is I mean, this is an easy one. And I'm confident that they would see that anyway and and exercise their discretion to not record it or to maybe just do an audio recording versus a video recording, which we still have the ability to do. So, yeah, I'll tell you right now that when we go back, I'll I'll add that to the policy. I appreciate that. Sure. I'm sorry. What was the other one was for? For a witness who might be hesitant to. Let's see. Yeah, same. Same issue. We. We actually, I think, uh, and forgive me for not having the whole thing memorized yet, but we have in for 50.8 prohibited use. We have conversation. I'm sorry. Encounters with undercover officers or confidential informants. Not every not every witness is a confidential informant. That was my point. That that I thought it was just a little bit broader, that if you have I mean, I don't know that we have so much of a problem here, but in a neighboring jurisdiction, there's a big problem with getting people to cooperate with the police. And I don't think it's because they're all wearing body worn cameras. But we we don't want to do anything that would make someone hesitant to come for. I don't think we do it right. No, no, you do your job. But no. We absolutely don't. So I just you know, those were the two. And again, I thought the Fremont policy, which I know you referred to and attached for us to to look at to it, I thought it it laid it out quite succinctly in in that same section that talks about victims in vulnerable position. Sure. Yeah. Those are happening to me. Yeah. Those are easy ones to add. I appreciate your consideration. Thank you. Sure. Hey Member de sa. Thank you. Thank you, Chief. Hilary, thank you very much. Appreciate all the information that you shared. I think the comment I really have to make is simply that, you know, with Black Lives Matter as a backdrop, to me, it seems fitting that a middle of the road city like Alameda is adopting one of the key agenda items of Black Lives Matter. On having local law enforcement wear body cameras. So on behalf of our residents. We, the city council, have made a significant commitment of $425,000 in this. And I hope our community is proud of us having done so. Yeah. I saw someone come in. The chief are putting this policy together. I mean, I think I mentioned this when we had the discussion over the expenditure that, you know, policymakers are struggling with how to craft an effective policy, one that really respects the civil rights of our citizens, you know, but at the same time, you know , does not interfere unduly and is overly prescriptive to officers doing their job. And I think you were able to find on that right balance. And I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. All right. So, first of all, I also want to commend you for bringing this forward. And my recollection is that we unanimously voted for the body cameras and looked forward to you bringing back your draft policy. And and for the audience and for people that don't know, there has been, in addition to the agenda item, the staff submittal where it has the policies of San Leandro as well as what was the other one, Fremont. Fremont. So that members of the community, you can go back and you can look at this now and you can see what other communities are doing and then compare it with ours. You can always communicate with the chief with your suggestions. There will be in the future, changes to the policy. It will always. The goal is to have it be responsive to our community's needs. And I and I do want to commend you for bringing this forward, adding the additional documents to help educate our community. I want to follow up in regards to if there were a California request under the California Public Records Act or the video for a recording, how would that be treated? Um, I would. My general my general not exclusive, but general thought is going to be that I'm going to deny those requests as exempt under disclosure because they're investigative records. And as I mentioned to all of you in the email that I sent you, I attached a recent opinion from May of this year from the California Second Circuit Court of Appeals. It was a lawsuit that had to do with license plate reader records, not body camera. But the issues are the same. And the court in that case found that that those records were all investigative in nature and therefore exempt from disclosure under the act. And that's that's where my position comes from and that's where it's going to stay until that changes. Having said that, I acknowledge in the end, my policy does allow for me to release videos to the media of my discretion if I feel that, you know, it's worthy to do so, where the where the information would be more beneficial for the public to know than to keep to myself. And so I. I don't intend to always say no. But what I what I want to protect the public from is this sort of voyeuristic element that enters into this, where someone sees the police enter their neighbor's home for God knows what kind of a call. And then they think, Well, I would like to see what happened inside that house. So I'm going to make a Public Records Act request because we're paying for those cameras and those police officers. And I have a right to see what happened in their home. I'm going to respectfully disagree and say that that's a that's a police investigation and it's not for you. On the other hand, if there's an incident, God forbid, where somebody you know, where. We're looking at a potential civil unrest because of an incident that happened. And the release of that video, as we saw in Boston recently, quells that concern. Then I'll be the first person at the front steps of the police department giving out that video to the media. So thank you. And I think it's important to acknowledge I have found every time I ask you a question that you come back with a reasonable explanation. And I would encourage anyone from the community that has questions to feel free to ask Chief O'Leary for for his reasoning in creating this policy. And then I wanted to add also on page 28 of the additional documents that were attached is where you'll find that case, the ACLU case is attached or the community as part of this agenda item to review so everyone can review that themselves. So thank you for providing that. Also, if you could explain activation when when the cameras would be activated that that part of the policy. Okay. So one of the things that we did not want to do when we wrote the policy was put the officers in a position where basically if they forgot or because of the circumstances didn't activate the camera, that they were now going to be subject to some sort of discipline because they didn't hit the button as they got into a middle of a fight or or worse. What we've done is we've told them. That there are many incidents and we identify them in the policy where they should or where we want them to. But we're not making it mandatory. And again, I want to give them discretion to turn these things on. Some some incidents can start out very, very calm, not confrontational and not anything that an officer would think worthy of recording and then on a dime can can turn into something that does need to be recorded. So in saying that, I'll remind you that the cameras that we're buying have a 32nd buffer so that it can't the camera's constantly recording whether the officer turns it on or not. But it can go back 30 seconds. So if the officer suddenly is in a situation where they say, Oh, I need to record this, they can hit the button and it goes back 30 seconds. And I think that's going to alleviate a lot of that a lot of the problems that we would have if we didn't have that feature in the camera. And that was one of the reasons why we went with the Taser camera was because of that feature. You know, and I want to just throw this out here since we're talking about it. And and for the public, there's going to be a time period here when when we when I distribute these cameras to the officers, we have them. They're sitting in boxes over at the police department. But I promise you, I wouldn't put them out until we had this discussion. These are these are new pieces of equipment for them. And I don't have my full belt on, but we're talking about ammunition, handguns, pepper spray, handcuffs, radio flashlight. There's a lot of stuff on the belt. It's going to take them some time. They're going to have to go through some training. It's going to take them some time to get used to the fact, just like you can remember, when we all had to remember to put our seatbelts on. It takes a little while. Once it was required to remember. Get in the car. Open the door. Put your seatbelt on. Right. This is going to happen with police officers. We've seen this in other jurisdictions. They're going to especially in the beginning, it's not going to come to them second nature. It's going to take some time to develop the muscle memory of I've got to record this. We also know this because we've had audio recorders for nine years, and when we first got them, we found that people were missing things. Now. They record them all the time, but it's on a different location on their belt. So I just would ask for a little patience and understanding from the public and from all of you that, you know, there could be some times early on where doesn't it doesn't go on because they're just frankly not used to having them . Any other questions? Comments. Thank you very much. Thank you. Should it? Six be received a report from the Public Utilities Board on Alameda Municipal Power's five year Strategic Plan, Capital Improvements and Financial Status. Or. I pushed her. Good evening. I'm Madeleine Dean, and I'm a commissioner on the Public Utility Board and also currently serving as president. And what we'd like to do is really bring you up to date on some of the things going on with the public utility board, some of our projections for the future. Starting with some current issues. A big one for us is distributed generation and this is something a few of you have already asked us questions about rooftop solar, how we're handling it, what's going on with it. So we thought we'd give you just a little bit of update of where we're heading in the future. We still don't have direct answers on some of these, but we have some main issues. One is rooftop solar, and that's something that right now we have rebates on. We also have a NIMH program where people are get in net energy metering funds. And as we look at that, the mandated portion of it is going to expire soon, not before the end of the year probably, but we need to have a policy in place going forward. We also are looking at the fact that we may need to treat residential customers different than we do commercial customers in that area and also our municipal customers. So that's another thing that we have to develop policy around and it's going to take some time and some working with the community. We've already started some of those conversations, but it's going to be ongoing for a while. Community Solar is something we're interested in. As all of you know, we have rec funds that we receive for selling off some of our renewable credits and also selling off for a period of time some of our renewable energy, those funds we can use in different ways, but it needs to be really applied to energy efficiency or renewable power in some way. One of the things we're looking at is the potential of community solar, whether it be a standalone project, a partnership with a business, one of the developers, a partnership with the schools, whatever that might be in the future, we don't know yet. We're still looking into what other communities are doing with it, what are the potentials, what are some of the pitfalls and hazards of doing it and trying to figure out where we want to go with that? The net energy meter in the NEM, as I mentioned, that's something that is a true of at the end of a cycle or end of the year where money is refunded to customers. The feed in tariff is a method that's been used in a number of areas and this is one that as the energy is fed into the grid, if you want to think big term as as it's fed in from a customer who has an excess, that's