Madison police will wear body cameras, but skepticism persists

Local Government Reporter

Madison will finally see the launch of a 90-day pilot program for body cameras in the police department, a decision nearly a decade in the making.

The City Council voted 16-4 Tuesday night to authorize the pilot, along with a set of policies to guide the program, that will equip 48 officers in the North District with body cameras. The decision followed an hours-long debate 15 months after the previous council narrowly supported a pilot program for the devices.

Tuesday’s vote differed from previous approvals because of the Madison Police Department policy now in place, and the length of the pilot was shortened from a year to 90 days.

An April 2022 vote to implement the pilot program was contingent on the City Attorney’s Office reviewing the police department’s body-worn camera policy, which establishes procedures for the cameras to document incidents involving police officers and the public, while also protecting people’s right to privacy.

The Madison Police Department is the only law enforcement agency in Dane County and one of the largest in the Midwest that doesn’t widely use body cameras, according to a local analysis of 71 regional agencies. Currently, only the city's Special Weapons and Tactics team and motorcycle officers use body-worn cameras.

Police Chief Shon Barnes has endorsed the need for body cameras in presentations to the City Council and other committees, saying they will help to keep both the public and police officers safe.

“There have been so many questions about body-worn cameras in this community. How much does it actually cost? I've heard estimates as high as $14 million, which is frightening to me,” Barnes said Tuesday.

(The city allocated $83,000 for the pilot program in the city’s 2023 capital budget.)

Barnes said some people think the pilot will immediately indicate whether the program is necessary, and whether it should be expanded to the entire city.

“We let the data tell us where the policy is successful and where the policy fails,” Barnes said. “If you're asking me a question about full implementation, I would have to defer that to your next chief, because this has taken some years off my life.”

Council members Juliana Bennett, Sabrina Madison, Nikki Conklin and Yannette Figueroa Cole voted against the resolution.

The current policy, drafted by Barnes, says the cameras will be used only to record police officer interactions with members of the public, collect evidence of criminal activity, serve as a training tool and monitor officer performance and compliance with laws, as well as department policies and procedures.

Greg Gelembiuk, who was a member of the Body-Worn Camera Feasibility Review Committee (which has since dissolved), argued the police chief's proposed policy disregards safeguard recommendations from the committee. For example, he cited a policy specification that allows officers to review body camera footage before writing a report.

“If you want to avoid accountability, this policy is fine — if not, such a policy should not be accepted,” Gelembiuk said in a letter to the City Council.

However, some of those initial policy recommendations from the committee were not “quite in line with state law,” Barnes told the Cap Times in February. Ensuring flexibility for future changes in the procedures was top of mind for the department, he said.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Barnes clarified that body camera footage may be used to ensure accuracy in reports but the department reserves the right to restrict access to footage, particularly during critical incidents. There are also details that will need to be worked out if the pilot is eventually expanded citywide and with one body camera company.

For the pilot, the department plans to test out three different cameras from companies MPD already uses: Axon, Panasonic and Motorola.

“I've done exactly what you asked me to do. I wrote the policy. I went through every line, more times than you can possibly believe,” Barnes said Tuesday night. “My task was to create a policy that substantially complies with the feasibility committee's report, and I did that. Then, I was asked to present it to two bodies. … I did presentations for both bodies and they passed it in both bodies.”

Both the Public Safety Review Committee and the Police Civilian Oversight Board recommended the policy’s approval over the past week.

Tuesday’s debate was split between some council alders hoping for more consistent policy guidelines and others claiming the council was micromanaging a program designed to collect information.

Council President Jael Currie offered an amendment that would require the police department to give a budget update after 60 days of the program. Currie contended the policy was rushed, even after decades of anticipation for body-worn cameras and over a year of delay after the council's approval to move forward with the pilot.

The amendment, which passed in a 13-7 vote, also struck language from the original resolution stating the policy was in “substantial compliance with the Body Worn Camera Feasibility Review Committee recommendations to the greatest extent feasible,”

“Body-worn cameras are not a panacea and alone cannot be expected to fix — or necessarily even improve — the perceived problems with policing and police-community relations,” Currie said. “(Body camera) implementation must only be a part of a package of reforms designed to enhance accountability, improve community relations, improve outcomes and ensure (the) cameras are utilized appropriately in ways that minimize their potential for unintended harms.”

“In my opinion, that's not what's before us tonight,” Currie said.

Council memberTag Evers said the changes to the resolution were “predicated on a lack of trust.”

“(This) pilot is moving substantially in the direction that we need to go and we should let it move forward,” Evers said. “(We’re) damning this before we even get started. I think either we support this with a recognition that it's not perfect. We don't let perfect be the enemy of the good and we move forward. We don't micromanage the police department at this point.”

The launch of the pilot program is anticipated for the coming months but the exact timeline depends on how long it would take to buy cameras and train officers, City Attorney Mike Haas said.

Allison Garfield joined the Cap Times in 2021 and covers local government. She graduated from UW-Madison with a degree in journalism and previously worked as a government watchdog reporter for USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin and was the state capitol intern for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Support Allison's work and local journalism by becoming a Cap Times member. Follow her on Twitter @aligarfield_.

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