In addition to protecting his state’s bathrooms from the threat of its transgender citizens, North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory signed off on a new law that will block police dashcam and body camera footage from the public record.
In other words, if N.C. cops beat you up or kill you, you or your family will have to take your case all the way to the state supreme court to request access to the video.
“My goal is to protect those who protect us,” McCrory said. “It’s better to have rules and guidelines with all this technology than no rules and guidelines whatsoever.”
But the ACLU of North Carolina doesn’t agree, calling the new law “shameful.”
“Body cameras should be a tool to make law enforcement more transparent and accountable to the communities they serve, but this shameful law will make it nearly impossible to achieve those goals,” Susanna Birdsong, Policy Counsel for the ACLU of North Carolina said. “People who are filmed by police body cameras should not have to spend time and money to go to court in order to see that footage. These barriers are significant and we expect them to drastically reduce any potential this technology had to make law enforcement more accountable to community members.”
.@PatMcCroryNC How does this increase transparency? Please explain – bc it seems to do the exact opposite
— Chelsea Peretti (@chelseaperetti) July 12, 2016
Unsurprisingly, Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison is ecstatic about the new law.
“A lot of groups think we should show everything from start to finish and we just can’t do it,” said Harrison. “They think we’re trying to hide something and that’s not what it is. But if we go into a house for a domestic (assault) and if the wife has been assaulted has been unclothed, we don’t want that on YouTube. We don’t want that out there.”
So to sum up, evidence being made available to the public that could show police misconduct or civil rights violations isn’t a good idea because god forbid naked ladies or something.
The law goes into effect October 1.
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