The saying goes that it never rains in Autzen, but Oregon is far from being considered a sunshine state – especially for transparency for police behavior.
After the video was released of, now-resigned, Eugene police officer Martin Siller saying racist, anti-immigrant and domsestic-violence related comments, my journalism class started discussing laws related to public records. Bodycam footage is considered public records, and something that anyone can submit a request to attain, however, Oregon law does one thing that other states don’t always do.
Currently Oregon anonymizes all footage from body-worn cameras, so before the footage is released to the public all faces are blurred, the identifying features are obscured, and parts of the audio may be required. Police officer names are further anonymized by using the word “personnel” to describe individuals.
Bodycams were mandated to increase police accountability and transparency with the public, however what is accountability without a name?
Sunshine laws, or laws that mandate government transparency by requiring access to meetings, records votes and deliberations, are still lacking in Oregon. In a survey of sunshine laws nationwide, Oregon ranked in the mid-tier, below states like Texas and Florida.
The Oregon legislature should take action after looking at this controversy in Eugene, and turn to making all body cam footage available for the public, with full police names. This would be a step in the right direction, and echo the sentiment of accountability and transparency that the community has been advocating for.
In a press conference hosted in Scobert Park on May 15, community organizers and local documentarians who have witnessed police violence on the streets spoke up.
“These are conversations that happen so frequently, and that are so common, that (Siller) was just casually taking part in this horrific conversation,” Blair Hickok said at the opening of the conference. “After speaking with several community members there are some things that have come up that have been really frustrating to hear, but at the same time, it’s not surprising. They have heard stuff like this, and worse, said to their face.”
Public records requests exist to hold officers accountable, and exist for press rooms to do further investigative searches on police misconduct. Without having access to names, faces and other identifying information, it’s much more difficult and expensive for the public to access the data.
One of the main reasons as to why the footage was not anonymized within the released footage was because local documentarian Tim Lewis, released it during the discovery process during his trial. Lewis made the decision to publish the videos and show the casual racist and sexist conversations which take place on duty.
“Unfortunately this system here is just like the rest of the country and it’s broken. Sorry, it’s not broken – it’s working exactly the way it was designed to,” Hickok said. “This is just one small snippet of a glimpse into that dark disgusting culture.”
It’s important to find ways to bring the public into these conversations, and by passing state level sunshine laws, Oregon would better accountability and transparency for police misconduct. Because what good is body cam footage without a name to hold an officer accountable?
