City of OKC

Recommendation No. 7:

OKCPD should prohibit officers from viewing video evidence before providing an interview in critical events.

OKCPD should prohibit officers from viewing video evidence before providing an interview in critical events, such as officer-involved shootings. This change needs to be balanced with an understanding that what any officer perceived will not match up perfectly with video evidence.

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In the wake of more departments, including OKCPD, adopting body-worn camera (“BWC”) technology, different views have emerged as to whether departments should make video captured of a given incident or interaction available to officers before writing a police report, providing an interview, or otherwise giving an official account of what occurred. Some departments expressly allow officers to view video prior to providing a statement. Others require that officers provide a statement or submit to an interview before reviewing any external evidence.

21CP observes here that officers reviewing footage of a force incident before making a statement risks exposure to aspects of the incident that they might not have seen or experienced at the time or could not recall, which can negatively “affect the ability of investigators to assess the officer’s contemporaneous appraisal of the circumstances which led him or her to take the actions under investigation.”

Regardless of whether some officers might try to “get their story straight” to conform with what was captured on video, many well-intentioned officers not otherwise inclined to align their accounts with video evidence might nonetheless have their recollections unduly swayed or altered by the information they learn, after the fact, from reviewing video. In short, officers viewing videos before providing their statement risks compromising the integrity of officer interviews and reducing the overall integrity of the investigation – as well as the public’s confidence in the investigation being full, fair, and unbiased. It should be noted that use of force subjects and other civilians generally are not able to review video of an incident prior to being interviewed.

According to many police executives, the primary benefit to officer review is that it allows officers to recall events more clearly, which helps get to the truth of what really happened. Some police executives, on the other hand, said that it is better for an officer’s statement to reflect what he or she perceived during the event, rather than what the camera footage revealed.

However, both police reform advocates and some police defense attorneys argue that capturing a perceptual statement before an officer views any evidence, including video, is best practice. For example, in the Seattle Federal Consent Decree, the Federal Court-approved policy allows officers to view video prior to writing criminal or low-level use of force reports, but prohibits review prior to being interviewed in serious use of force cases, thereby striking a balance between efficiency and accuracy in reporting and the benefits of capturing an officer’s “perception of what occurred.” However, the Court expressly recognized that “there will inevitably be inconsistencies between reports written before and after review of BWV due to the inherent limits of human perception and memory.” As such, any policy restricting officer’s ability to review BWC evidence must include a clear statement that inconsistencies are expected and that not all discrepancies between video and officer recall and reporting implies dishonesty.

In the community survey, ninety-two of people who responded were supportive of this recommendation. Black/African American (86%); Native American/Alaskan Native (88%); Asian (80%); White (88%); Latinx (77%); and Other (80%).