{"id":45428,"date":"2025-11-19T23:27:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T23:27:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/45428\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T23:27:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T23:27:06","slug":"nyc-may-hand-citizen-watchdog-group-direct-access-to-nypd-bodycams-and-cops-arent-happy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/45428\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC may hand citizen watchdog group ‘direct access’ to NYPD bodycams — and cops aren’t happy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Big Apple lawmakers are considering a bill that would give the NYPD\u2019s civilian watchdog group \u201cdirect access\u201d to police bodycam footage \u2014 and cops are fuming about it.<\/p>\n

The apparently first-of-its-kind law pitched by Council Speaker Adrienne Adams would give the Civilian Complaint Review Board real-time access to video from body-worn police cameras to speed up the board\u2019s investigations into alleged police misconduct and brutality claims \u2014 although the bill faces an uphill battle.<\/p>\n

\u201cBills like this are a major reason cops are quitting in droves,\u201d NYPD PBA President Patrick Hendry railed on X<\/a>. \u201cWho wants to work in a system where people who don\u2019t value or understand your work are given direct, real-time access to second-guess your every move?<\/p>\n

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams is proposing a local law to give the CCRB direct access to NYPD bodycams. William Farrington<\/p>\n

A recent city comptroller\u2019s report said the NYPD is lax to release bodycam footage under public records laws. AP<\/p>\n

\u201cCity Council members need to understand that every time they support a bill like this, they\u2019re making their constituents less safe because more cops will head out the door,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Police brass said the move could also face logistical setbacks \u2014 in part because similar laws don\u2019t exist anywhere in the country and could face unexpected legal hurdles.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot measured in days, weeks and months, but years,\u201d NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Legal Matters Michael Gerber told lawmakers Wednesday. \u201cAnything about this is speculative.\u201d<\/p>\n

NYPD PBA President Patrick Hendry said the proposal to give the CCRB access to bodycams will drive cops away. J.C. Rice<\/p>\n

Introduced last week, the proposal is now before the council\u2019s Committee on Public Safety.<\/p>\n

The bill, also backed by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, would give the CCRB \u201cdirect access to all footage recorded by officer body-worn cameras,\u201d providing the board with \u201creal time connectivity to network servers hosting digital files of body-worn camera footage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Council supporters said the measure is necessary to speed up CCRB reviews.<\/p>\n

A city comptroller\u2019s report released last month<\/a> found that NYPD oversight and monitoring of bodycam footage is \u201clacking,\u201d and 53% of cameras were not even activated during a limited review.<\/p>\n

Michael Gerber, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Legal Matters, told lawmakers the bodycam bill is \u201cspeculative.\u201d NYC.gov<\/p>\n

Police transparency is also lacking when it comes to bodycams based on requests for the videos under the state Freedom of Information Law, the report said. The law requires an agency to respond to requests within 25 business days at most \u2014 and yet the average NYPD reply took 133 business days, the report said.<\/p>\n

Of the 5,427 FOIL requests reviewed by the comptroller, only 15% reportedly received a reply within 25 days.<\/p>\n

The new bill remained in limbo after Wednesday\u2019s committee hearing and could linger there for some time unless more sponsors on the council buy in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Big Apple lawmakers are considering a bill that would give the NYPD\u2019s civilian watchdog group \u201cdirect access\u201d to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[301,7546,57,9,56,63,65,64,103,19970,25966,58],"class_list":["post-45428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-city-council","tag-civilian-complaint-review-board","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-nypd","tag-police-benevolent-association","tag-police-body-cameras","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}