As an Indigenous rights lawyer, I need police body cam footage. Don’t limit my access | Opinion

Vehicular pursuit laws are not the only thing that might be rolled back in Olympia this legislative session. Washington state lawmakers are also considering rolling back the public’s access to body-worn camera footage of citizen-police encounters.

Three decades ago, the Legislature passed the Public Records Act, acknowledging that Washingtonians “do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know.” But SHB 1080 threatens this vital tradition.

I am an Indigenous rights lawyer who represents families whose loved ones lost their lives during law enforcement incidents, including Renee Davis, Cecil Lacy, Jr., Stonechild Chiefstick, and Kimberly Bender. Local police recorded body-worn camera footage in each of these tragedies.

Were it law, SHB 1080 would have impaired our efforts to redress the constitutional and civil rights violations suffered by these families at the hands of law enforcement.

SHB 1080 would categorically prevent civil rights or criminal defense lawyers from obtaining officer body-worn camera footage pursuant to the public records process. The bill would distance all Washington citizens and residents from their constitutional rights.

In criminal cases, the state owes specific evidence to defendants as part of the discovery process. Defense attorneys make public records requests to ensure that the state is honoring its constitutional discovery obligations. SHB 1080 would prevent this crucial check and balance.

In civil rights cases, attorneys watch body-worn camera footage to determine how, if at all, to file suit. Without such footage, attorneys have limited information, especially in the event of a “they said, she’s dead” scenario. An unintended consequence is that SHB 1080 could encourage frivolous lawsuits; and help defeat meritorious lawsuits, including on qualified immunity grounds.

If SHB 1080 does not allow lawyers to still obtain body-worn camera footage, the truth associated with law enforcement violence would remain hidden. The police reforms mandated by the voters through and since I-940 would be stymied. And it would be the people of Washington State who suffer the lack of governmental transparency and police accountability.

Kimberly Bender’s tragic story exemplifies this bill’s problems. It was Kimberly’s recorded confession to a local cop about how a Forks jail guard sexually tormented her, which caused county authorities to discover he had raped four other women in Forks’ custody. My office obtained the footage of her interview via public records request as part of our standard pre-suit investigation.

Shortly after her confession, Kimberly took her own life in the Forks Jail. It was the body-worn camera footage of her confession that allowed us to bring a federal civil rights lawsuit for her family that would withstand judicial scrutiny. Of course, Kimberly, the “person directly involved in an incident recorded by the requested body-worn camera recording” according to SHB 1080, could not have made the public records request herself. Nor could Renee, Cecil, or Stonechild.

Had SHB 1080 existed, my firm could not have requested the footage of Kimberly’s confession from Forks for her family, as is standard public records practice today. Instead, Kimberly’s family would have needed to file suit to establish an estate in Superior Court, just to obtain the footage. Like many Washingtonians, her family could not afford the legal expense.

Forks took months to produce the footage of Kimberly’s confession. Kimberly’s family was ill-equipped to keep after Forks’ records custodian as was necessary to obtain the footage. Redacted footage was eventually provided to my firm in the form of an enormous electronic file, which was inaccessible to Kimberly’s family, especially due to poor broadband in La Push.

That footage was the linchpin to the family’s civil rights lawsuit, which recently settled for $1 million. That same footage is also the fulcrum of ESB 5033 “Kimberly Bender’s law,” which the Legislature unanimously passed last week to deter jail guards from sexually assaulting inmates.

SHB 1080 is bad policy that would harm all Washingtonians. The Legislature should not impair the constitutional and civil rights of everyone in our great state, particularly criminal defendants who enjoy a presumption of innocence and civil rights victims who seek truth and justice.

Gabriel S. Galanda is an Indigenous rights lawyer and the managing lawyer of Galanda Broadman, PLLC in Seattle.