Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed into law a provision within a 450-page omnibus bill called H.B. 315. It lets law enforcement agencies charge people for access to video footage captured by body cameras, as well as footage from jail surveillance cameras.
Now, if people suspect their police officer wasn’t exactly on the up and up, they’ll have to cough up $75 per hour for processing requests. There’s a maximum fee of $750 per request. Holding police officers accountable will now cost you a pretty penny, to say the least.
DeWine defended the policy by suggesting that small police departments might struggle to handle the volume of video requests. He claims that these fees would help recover the costs of processing and redacting video. Sounds like a bullshit excuse to allow cops the freedom to do whatever they want.
Want Police Body Can Footage in Ohio? That’ll Cost You up to $750.
Body cams are one of the lasting legacies of the post-George Floyd era when instances of police brutality were being captured on camera phones by average citizens and broadcast to the world via social media. The phones in our pockets allowed the average citizen to hold the potentially corrupt police forces of the nation accountable for their actions. It was a much-needed shift toward transparency, one that now has more of a hurdle in front of it in the state of Ohio.
For now, DeWine seems to at least be paying lip service to reverse any negative consequences that may arise from muddying the waters of transparency. While DeWine says he believes it’s the public’s right to access these public records, the bureaucratic process involved is a little pricey.
He says “If the language in House Bill 315 related to public records turns out to have unforeseen consequences, I will work with the General Assembly to amend the language to address such legitimate concerns.”
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