To the Editor:

As the Mayor of Franklin, I agree with the efforts of the three Buncombe County legislators who have introduced a local bill to allow Asheville City Council to view police body cam videos. I have to say that this needs to be statewide for all city councils, not just the City of Asheville. 

I do not understand the reluctance of some in the General Assembly who are so against this. The Town of Franklin, was among the first in Western North Carolina to have body cams. As a retired law enforcement officer, and as the mayor, I fully supported the town employing these body cameras but was appalled when the legislature stepped in and made it sound as though municipal officials could not be trusted to view the actions of the officers we employ.

I do see the argument that the videos should not be open to anyone who just has a curiosity of what may be on the videos. That could get out of hand. There does need to be a system to keep prurient or frivolous viewing out of the picture. I believe any municipality could come up with a policy to negate casual, frivolous viewing by someone with no interest in the situation but who is just plain nosy. Of course, defining nosy in such a policy would be interesting and challenging. Sort of like defining pornography. 

I will be the first to admit that there are situations, such as those involving children or domestic crises, that should be of no concern to the general public unless they are of extraordinary circumstances. In those cases, there must be a guard against an unreasonable invasion of privacy.

Those also do not need to be a concern of the city council as well, unless there are allegations of misbehavior or improper handling of the situation by the officers. I question why a city official or citizen has to take the time of a busy judicial official to make a body cam video public when the judicial system is already swamped with overflowing dockets.

Any legitimate reason to review the videos by a member of the public or media will result in transparency and public trust of our officers. The North Carolina Public Records law allows for the release of law enforcement incident reports — unless there is some investigative or compelling reason not to release the report. Body cam videos should be treated similarly. 

The videos also protect the officer from false accusations of improper actions.

Many times when, as an officer, the first thing someone nearly always said to me when I stopped them was, “Why are you picking on me? I haven’t done anything?” Well, with body cams there is about a 90 percent chance to show visually how that person acted and what they said. And probably what they did. A perpetrator would have trouble arguing against such a visual record.

Mayor Bob Scott

Franklin