An Arizona legislative panel made up of lawmakers, law enforcement leaders and attorneys overwhelmingly rejected a series of proposals Thursday that included requiring police departments to use body-worn video cameras and restrictions on the release of some videos.
The panel on police body cameras met several times in recent months and rejected 16 proposals at their final meeting.
That means any legislation introduced in the coming session faces an uphill battle, Sen. John Kavanagh said. He still wants to see restrictions on release of some videos and changes to protect officer privacy. But he says the 14-member panel's lopsided voting shows it will be hard to enact any new laws.
"I don't plan to introduce legislation that puts controls on police departments," said Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills. "I'm still considering legislation to protect ordinary citizens from Internet extortion."
Kavanagh said he wanted to see laws that would ban police department from mandating officers never turn off their cameras even during personal phone calls, a law preventing release of embarrassing videos in some cases and one giving ordinary citizens the right to ask officers to turn off cameras if they are not part of an investigation."
"I don't think decent citizens should only be able to talk to the police when they're being videotaped," he said.
All three were soundly rejected by the panel.
Rep. Sonny Borrelli, R-Lake Havasu City, said it's clear to him from testimony the panel took that exemptions in the current public records law protects privacy interests.
"As far as public release we already have that in statute," Borrelli said. "We've got enough things in statute already, let's not mess with it."
The study committee was created after initial efforts during this year's legislative session fizzled. The efforts were prompted by a series of police shootings across the nation that brought added scrutiny to police actions.
The panel considered a series of proposals that would have placed state mandates on how police department deploy body cameras. They included a requirement that they be used in all critical situations, a rule allowing officers to review their footage before they wrote reports and minimum and maximum quality standards.
All were voted down overwhelmingly after testimony from sheriffs and police that they needed to tailor their own policies free of state control.
"The common theme was, should the state mandate a lot of this stuff when local law enforcement should have the control," Borrelli said. "What works in Lake Havasu doesn't necessarily work in west Phoenix."