Metro

NYPD, council members spar over new body camera video policy

A new NYPD policy of releasing body cam footage from “critical” incidents within 30 days doesn’t go far enough, city council members charged during a committee hearing Monday — calling for videos to be released quicker without subjective edits, as the NYPD claimed it doesn’t have the manpower to be more transparent.

The policy, quietly released by the department last month, gives cops 30 calendar days to release footage from “critical incidents” — when a cop’s actions result in “death or serious physical injury” — as long as the investigation into the use of force is complete. Clips can also be released if the police commissioner deems it necessary, but in either event, the police may edit out “extraneous” footage.

But members of the city council’s Committee on Public Safety said the department’s stated policy is too vague, and questioned whether cops should be allowed to edit footage.

“At some point in the future something is going to happen in the footage and if that footage is not a complete representation you have not succeeded in earning the trust of the public where people can say, ‘I see with my own eyes,’ ” said Queens Councilman Rory Lancman.

But Assistant Deputy Commissioner of Legal Matters Oleg Chernyavsky said all footage will be retained for 18 months — and hiding key facts would only work against the NYPD.

“It does not benefit the NYPD to leave out valuable information for it to come out at a later time,” Chernyavsky said.

Councilwoman Adrienne Adams said the “public has to have faith in this policy” but, so far, she believes it falls short.

“Who determines the context and the content and to whom is that going to? Why do you need 30 days to release videos to the public?” she asked.

Chernyavsky said staffing levels are creating a bottleneck — and a bill proposed by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams calling for detailed quarterly reports on body camera footage would only exacerbate the department’s workload by forcing employees to manually review every second of footage captured.

“To watch just the 130,000 new videos every week, we would have to hire and train approximately 800 news analysts/investigators,” Chernyavsky said — noting the department’s database is currently at 8 million videos.