The Denver police use-of-force reports compiled during a 2014 pilot program in which officers wore body cameras show that video often wasn’t taken or showed little of what happened.
A Denver Post review of 34 of the reports, compiled between June 23 and Dec. 20, found that in only 10 cases did the reports indicate that video-captured force was being used.
Incidents in which officers used pepper spray or stun guns or struck suspects with batons or fists weren’t recorded because officers failed to activate cameras, technical malfunctions occurred or the camera didn’t capture the action.
Five of the reports, which spell out actions that supervisors took to investigate the incidents, included no mention of the cameras, so it is impossible to determine whether they were used.
The Post conducted its review after the police department disputed an independent monitor’s report released this month that found only one in four use-of-force incidents was recorded during the pilot program. Police did not release reports where there is an open prosecution or ongoing Internal Affairs Bureau investigation.
The monitor’s report angered police commanders, who said the monitor used data outside the parameters of the pilot project.
“Anybody with new equipment is going to have some learning curves,” said police spokesman Sonny Jackson. “That is why you do a pilot. … We did this to determine how it would work, and a lot of things have been learned from this.”
In seven incidents, the officers said they didn’t turn their cameras on because events were occurring too quickly.
Only two of the reports said that the sergeant investigating the incidents discussed the need for activating the cameras with those who didn’t do so.
The other reports gave no indication whether the officer’s supervisor talked to the cops about the need to turn on the cameras.
Jackson attributed discrepancies in the way supervisors filled out the reports to a learning curve, as well. The program used existing forms called “supervisor’s use-of-force cover sheets,” he said.
The pilot could lead to their redesign, as well as some policy changes, he said.
Besides the 10 reports of useful video, The Post found:
• One camera was turned on but didn’t activate.
• One officer, who was confronting a fistfight among 20 people, didn’t turn the camera on because the fight started too quickly. After deploying pepper spray, he did turn it on.
• One officer forgot to bring a battery pack.
• One said the camera was knocked off his uniform during a struggle.
• One said the camera was turned off during a scuffle.
• One camera turned on but didn’t activate, and a cable came loose during another incident.
• One officer had the camera turned on while the suspect was being compliant, but it was turned off when she later became violent.
In other incidents, a camera was on but didn’t capture the action, a battery “possibly died,” a camera was stuck underneath the officer’s collar, and one officer said she turned the camera on, but the investigator said it wasn’t clear that she had done so.
During one incident, several officers monitoring bar crowds at 15th and Market streets, saw a man running with a belt dangling from his hand, the buckle swinging free. Several others were chasing him.
“Uncertain if this party had just attacked someone with the weapon, Officer Adam Foisy stopped the party by grabbing him about his upper torso.”
That stopped the man, who fell to the ground. In that case, the report said, camera footage “is consistent with all officer-written statements.”
Mary Dulacki, records coordinator for the Denver Department of Safety, said the department wouldn’t provide all 46 reports that The Post requested under Colorado’s Open Records Act because in 11 of the cases, “there is an open prosecution,” and one case is being investigated by the Internal Affairs Bureau.
There has been confusion surrounding the number of reports since the department first said there were 53 use-of-force incidents, with 46 of them including some video.
The department later backtracked, saying there were 46 use-of-force incidents among District 6 officers who were given body cameras during the six-month program, and 33 of them contained some video
At that time, Cmdr. Magen Dodge said the totals initially cited were based on preliminary research, spurred in part by the release of a report by Denver’s independent monitor, Nick Mitchell.
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671, tmcghee@denverpost.com or
