Police to deploy mobile video units for GOP convention

CLEVELAND — Local police officials plan to deploy roving videographers during the Republican National Convention to capture encounters involving officers and the public, including thousands of protesters who are expected to descend on the city.

Although officers are equipped with individual body cameras, Deputy Chief Wayne Drummond said newly purchased riot gear intended to outfit up to 2,000 officers will not accommodate recording equipment. While Drummond hoped that there would be no need to deploy the body-armored units, he said the mobile video units would fill the “unforeseen’’ gap in video surveillance created in part by the uniform glitch.

“We feel comfortable that we will capture the interactions’’ between police officers and the public, Drummond said.

Body cameras have become nearly standard equipment for many police forces in the wake of recent, high-profile clashes involving law enforcement. Cleveland began rolling out its camera program in the months after the 2014 fatal shooting of a 12-year-old boy wielding a toy gun.

The local police role in securing the approaching convention has drawn increasing scrutiny since a Justice Department review found a pattern of abusive police practices, including the use of excessive force. As part of 2014 joint agreement between the city and the federal government, an independent monitor is overseeing the implementation of a series of reforms.

Drummond said the videographers' duties would include accompanying police "arrest teams'' in the event protests depart from peaceful demonstrations.

At least 80 groups or individuals have applied for demonstration permits during the run of the convention, promising the involvement of thousands of protesters. One of the largest groups, Organize! Ohio, expects to draw up to 5,000, as part of a planned anti-poverty demonstration. The city has yet to rule on any of the applications.

Civil rights advocates have expressed concerns about the mobile units, especially their use alongside riot officers who will not be equipped with individual cameras.

"Mobile camera units provide officers' a discretion (to capture certain images or encounters) that body cameras do not,'' Cleveland ACLU spokesman Stephen David said. "Body cameras, when they are deployed properly, take the discretionary element out of it. There also is a degree of immediacy that is lost if you are deploying units to an event, rather than having officers equipped to record the event as it happens.''

Cleveland NAACP President Michael Nelson also said mobile units were not sufficient to fill the gap in video coverage of likely police encounters.

"We are under a consent decree (mandating police reforms), and there are 2,000 sets of riot gear that are not adaptable to cameras?'' Nelson said.

Stephen Loomis, president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association, said the group is considering legal action to force the attachment of body cameras to the new riot suits.

"This is a huge concern to us,'' said Loomis, whose group was formed in the aftermath of deadly rioting in 1968. "At a time when you need body cameras the most, they are not going to be available. You can't expect four guys (videographers) to be able to capture what's going on if you have lines of (riot) officers confronting hundreds or possibly thousands of protesters at different places around the city.

"This is not acceptable,'' he said.

Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a think tank that has reviewed law enforcement's use of camera technology, said police agencies are increasingly using videographers — apart from body cameras — at demonstrations and protests where mass arrests are likely.

"A lot of departments will use video units both to document what the scene looks like and to possibly discourage people from participating in something unlawful, knowing that their actions would be caught on camera,'' Wexler said. "When you expect legal action to follow mass arrests, you certainly want to document what the conditions were at the time.''

Wexler said the practice also is useful in identifying possible suspects for future enforcement action when their immediate arrests may only inflame an already volatile environment.

"It is absolutely a good practice in these kinds of situations,'' Wexler said.