The mother of the 15 year old killed by Akron police on Thanksgiving is speaking out against a new Ohio law the allows law enforcement agencies to charge the public potentially hundreds of dollars for body cam footage.
Gov. Mike DeWine signed House Bill 315 Jan. 2. The 450 page bill passed by the state legislature during its marathon lame duck session includes a provision allowing law enforcement to charge for the "estimated cost" of processing body cam footage, $75 an hour, up to $750. The provision had no public hearings prior to its passage. The change goes into effect 90 days after DeWine signed the bill.
Under Ohio Revised Code, department's already can charge for records.
Ashley Green, mother of Jazmir Tucker, stressed the importance of police body cam footage and the accessibility of it in her son's case while speaking out against the new law.
"Anyone can say anything. I wasn't there," she said. "Without that anybody could and possibly still can make up any type of lies they want to."
Footage of the fatal shooting of Tucker was released a week later by the city and shows officers running toward him with weapons drawn. One officer with an AR-15 style rifle fires. Tucker is not seen in the video until he is being handcuffed. Police later found a handgun in his zipped coat pocket. An autopsy report on Tucker's death shows he sustained two lethal shots to his back.
This body cam footage is crucial to understanding the case, Attorney Robert Gresham with The Cochran Firm, which is representing Tucker's family, said.
"Fortunately we have body camera footage that shows certain things in Jazmir's case in particular that have helped us start to piece together the actual story of what occurred," he said, "and tell us the story of the aggressiveness of that particular police department in Akron."
Gresham said he believes it's a bad law.
"We believe this is absolutely an attempt to prevent transparency in law enforcement and officer conduct," he said.
The law infringes on the community's ability to hold police accountable, Shawna Barnett said. Her brother, Andre Hill, was killed by a Columbus police officer in 2020. The officer, Adam Coy, was found guilty in Hill's killing.
"Honestly, I feel like it damages the public's trust," she said, "because it feels like the government is putting walls up and not wanting to have things exposed to them that needs to be exposed."
It's also unfair to ask taxpayers, who fund police departments, to pay these additional fees, Barnett said.
"If we're not able to view the body cam footage, there's no point in having a camera," she said.
The law also puts a burden on lawyers attempting to research potential cases, said Fanon Rucker, an attorney with The Cochran Firm.
"It can be prohibitive costly for us to do an accurate investigation to decide whether or not there's a basis to pursue the case," he said.
Supporters of the law, including DeWine, said law enforcement agencies can become burdened with public records requests. However, opponents of the law, like Gresham, argue that police departments are more than adequately funded to respond to these requests.
"Cities around the state continue to approve operating budgets in which police spending is regularly almost over one third of million and billion dollar budgets at the expense of resources that might actually help the public," Gresham said.
He has "little sympathy" for this argument, he said.
"If they don't want the public looking into their conduct, stop shooting people," he said.
Attorneys with The Cochran Firm along with family members impacted by police violence are calling on the Ohio legislature to repeal the law.
"Whatever needs to take place in order for it to no longer exist, that is what we're asking," Gresham said. "That is what we're ultimately requesting. That is the position we're taking as civil rights lawyers in this state."
In response to Ideastream Public Media's request for comment, the governor's office referred to a statement released when he signed the bill into law.
"No law enforcement agency should ever have to choose between diverting resources for officers on the street to move them to administrative tasks like lengthy video redaction reviews for which agencies receive no compensation, and this is especially so for when the requestor of the video is a private company seeking to make money off of these videos," DeWine said in the statement. "The language in House Bill 315 is a workable compromise to balance the modern realities of preparing these public records and the cost it takes to prepare them."
If the law has "unforeseen consequences," DeWine will work with the legislature to amend it, he said in the statement.
