Northampton’s criminal justice system has a problem: failing dashboard mounted cameras in its police vehicles. Footage from the dashcams currently installed on Northampton Police Department cruisers often fails to upload recorded footage of civilian-police interactions to the department’s on-site server.
As a result, people charged with a crime after being stopped are coming to court to find that video evidence of their interaction with the Northampton Police is missing.
The prosecutor will, of course, still have the testimony of the officer. But objective, unalterable video that could show a different version of events from the officer’s account is not reliably available to the person facing conviction.
Our city has an obligation to remedy this situation. The Northampton City Council, on which I serve, is considering a pending order to authorize a five-year contract with a different dashcam provider, Motorola, recommended by the city’s Information Technology Services Department. I plan to support the order and I hope the council will act swiftly. Delaying this decision could literally mean justice denied.
I have been a criminal defense attorney for nearly 20 years, and the majority of my practice is court-appointed public defense of individuals who cannot afford an attorney. Through my work, I have learned that racism is indeed systemically embedded in the criminal legal system and, as such, my clients are disproportionately people of color. Footage of police-citizen interactions is a vital tool in every defense attorney’s belt to compel fairer operation of the criminal legal system.
Whether captured by dashcams or a bystander’s phone, video helps hold the police accountable and provides the objective footage needed to challenge unconstitutional interactions. It is also the only kind of evidence that has been successful in holding police accountable who have committed acts of brutality.
Derek Chauvin was convicted of murdering George Floyd in large part because of police bodycam video evidence. Texas state trooper Brian Encinia was fired when dashcam footage showed he lied about what happened during his roadside arrest of Sandra Bland, who later died in jail.
Statements opposing the pending contract order contain a great deal of incorrect information and misunderstanding that I’d like to address.
First, while the proposed dashcam contract would ensure an upgrade in its functional reliability, it would not provide the police department with any new technology, nor would it expand the department’s surveillance capabilities. Northampton PD was one of the first local jurisdictions to use dashcams throughout its fleet, instituting their use in 2007. While many municipal police departments continue even today to resist implementing dashcams, Northampton was a laudable leader in adopting this tool of police accountability and evidence preservation.
Second, it is not the case that police officers can edit, delete, or turn off the dash cameras at will. The replacement system will operate as the old one did. It automatically activates to record in certain situations — such as when an officer turns on their cruiser’s blue lights — and captures the video and audio from about two minutes prior to the activation. When working properly, the captured recording automatically wirelessly uploads to a designated server. Currently the data is stored on an on-site server.
The proposed new system has the capability to store to a local server or to a cloud-based server. As with any data storage system it maintains, the city is obligated to ensure that all possible security measures are taken to safeguard the data from hacking and to refrain from releasing information unless legally authorized or required to do so.
The department could no more hand this data over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or any other state or federal law enforcement agency without a court order than could our municipal health or personnel departments, which also safeguard sensitive, identifying personal information.
Finally, despite the concerns raised about Motorola’s facial recognition services, the NPD is prohibited by city ordinance from using facial recognition software. In turn, no integrated facial recognition software will be part of the new system. To the extent that images captured with this system could be run through facial recognition software, this is true of images obtained from any source, including social media posts and old-fashioned Polaroid cameras.
It is the police department’s job to gather and preserve evidence. Its compliance with the facial recognition software ban does not require that they stop performing this core function. It depends on the department refraining from analyzing that evidence in ways that are racially biased and unreliable.
Like many others, I am troubled by Motorola’s record as a corporate citizen, but the primary responsibility of the city is to purchase equipment that allows its employees to do their jobs and, particularly with regard to the police, allows the public to hold its government accountable. The reality is that any company that makes police communication and tech equipment will likely also be a military contractor. Even if we as a community could agree on a precise definition of social responsibility for purposes of a procurement rubric, there is no company making this equipment that could meet any high social responsibility criteria.
From my perspective as a defense attorney and a city councilor, what the city urgently needs right now is reliable dashcam footage to ensure criminal cases can be adjudicated fairly based on all possible evidence, and we should trust our IT department to determine which vendor can provide the most reliable service.
Wherever one stands regarding the future role of the police in our city, they are a part of our daily lives now and will be for the foreseeable future. I believe that we need to use the best tools available to keep the police accountable to the community they serve. I will be voting to approve the dashcam contract.
Marissa Elkins is an at-large councilor on the Northampton City Council and a defense attorney for 20 years.