Heed report on police body cameras, expand program

There are many reasons law enforcement agencies across the country and on Long Island have embraced body-worn cameras, or BWCs. Despite the drawbacks, body cameras make policing better and improve community relations.

So the 83 times Suffolk County police officers failed to activate body cameras in a 12-month period, according to a county Human Rights Commission report, are concerning.

The annual report, which covers June 1, 2024, to May 31, 2025, noted seven times a camera was off during officer-to-officer interactions "critical to the investigation," and 20 times when a camera was off during other officer-to-officer interactions. 

The report makes it clear these 83 incidents raise serious concerns about possible misconduct, especially the seven deemed critical to an investigation. "These instances pose a serious challenge to transparency …" the report states. "The findings suggest a systemic issue with compliance to BWC protocols — whether due to inadequate training, poor enforcement, or deliberate inaction."  

Among the recommendations in the report, written by the commission's Administration of Justice Subcommittee, are stricter enforcement of violations of body camera activation protocols, retraining of officers and supervisor monitoring for compliance.

Suffolk Police Benevolent Association president Lou Civello, however, told the editorial board the 83 incidents were "statistically insignificant" compared with "thousands and thousands" of times when cameras were properly used. Civello added there are times when cameras should be turned off, such as when interviewing a victim of a sex crime, or police interactions with their union officials.

"We do want transparency, and I think this is unprecedented transparency," Civello said. He added that body cameras "validate the fact that they (police) do an excellent job and protects them" from unfounded accusations.

The report doesn’t state whether any officers were identified in multiple incidents. There are about 2,500 uniformed officers in the SCPD, and policies dictating when officers must use body cameras are among the most stringent in the country, Civello said.

Law enforcement agencies support body cameras because they improve investigations, help exonerate officers wrongly accused of misconduct, and improve police conduct since they know they’re being recorded. In the era of social media, bystander video selectively edited to support claims of police misconduct is a problem allayed by body cameras.

Body cameras certainly have negatives, particularly the possibility of interfering with sensitive investigations. Body cameras and training cost money. Storing enormous amounts of data, which must be protected from cybercriminals, requires trained experts and computer storage.

A huge force like SCPD may never be able to achieve 100% compliance with body cameras, but it should try. In the short span in which the cameras have been used, overall compliance and effectiveness has been evident. The county should negotiate with the detectives union, which has expressed interest, in expanding the program to plainclothes officers. Long Island law enforcement agencies should continue to embrace technological advances to improve policing while trusting civilian oversight. The people they are sworn to protect need their best every day.