Per the Juneau Police Department\u2019s request, the Juneau Assembly appropriated about $19,000 to fund a body-camera initiative during its meeting Monday night. The most vocal opposition to the measure, which JPD has been moving toward for years, came from the only former member of the force serving on the Assembly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand the impetus behind going to body cameras, but I have a suspicion that not all of the legality with them has been worked out yet, and it will cost the city far more to have body cameras than not to have them,\u201d Deputy Mayor Jerry Nankervis said.<\/p>\n
Before he was a member of the Assembly, Nankervis worked as an officer for JPD. During his time on the force, Nankervis encountered what he noted as a problem with recording the actions of police, be it with audio recorders, dash cams or body cameras.<\/p>\n
Then, like now, officers were required to keep audio recordings of their interactions with the community. During Monday\u2019s meeting, Nankervis recounted a time when a judge threw out a citation he\u2019d written because the interaction hadn\u2019t been recorded.<\/p>\n
According to Nankervis, body cameras also invade people\u2019s privacy and in doing so exposes the city to litigation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have some concerns about taking cameras into people\u2019s houses and recording everything police do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The way Juneau Chief of Police Bryce Johnson sees it, body cameras protect police officers from the very liabilities that Nankervis is worried about.<\/p>\n
Concerned about protecting privacy, Assembly member Mary Becker asked Johnson on Monday what would happen if officers entered a home late at night and their body cameras captured indecent footage of the people inside.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen an officer goes into Mr. Jones\u2019 home, and the camera is on, and his wife comes out of his bedroom, and she\u2019s ready for bed, that\u2019s an invasion of privacy,\u201d Becker said, jokingly using Assembly colleague Loren Jones for the sake of illustration.<\/p>\n
Johnson didn\u2019t argue, but he pointed out that if an officer is in a person\u2019s home looking at somebody who doesn\u2019t want to be seen, that person\u2019s privacy has already been invaded.<\/p>\n
At that point in Becker\u2019s hypothetical scenario, the body camera footage will help reveal whether the invasion of privacy violated the law, Johnson said. In the case that the officer was in the right, the footage will protect him or her from any allegations of wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe camera is going to accurately record what happened and protect the officer and the public because if the officer did something wrong we still want to know about it,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cI\u2019m not here to say that body cameras are a perfect system or that all of the questions have been answered, but it is my professional opinion that the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Assembly approved the appropriating ordinance that will help fund the body cameras with a 7\u20132 vote. Mayor Ken Koelsch was the only person other than Nankervis to object to the measure. He didn\u2019t speak to his objection.<\/p>\n
Late last month, the U.S. Department of Justice awarded JPD with a grant of about $25,000, a part of the Body-Worn Camera Policy and Implementation Program. That grant will help the department purchase 40 body cameras. In order for the department to access those federal funds, it has to put up nearly $27,000 of its own money, which is where the Assembly came in Monday.<\/p>\n
JPD doesn\u2019t have that money readily accessible in its budget. JPD will cover roughly $7,500 of the $27,000 match in personnel costs. The Assembly appropriated about $19,400 in asset forfeiture funds to cover the rest.<\/p>\n
Asset forfeiture funds are illegal monies JPD has seized during arrests and operations.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Prison time for refusing to pay fines<\/strong><\/p>\n To the dismay of Assembly member Jesse Kiehl, the Assembly amended city code, giving courts the ability to imprison defendants who haven\u2019t paid (in any installment) a fine or restitution.<\/p>\n \u201cI understand and appreciate that this very closely reflects a state law that is, and has been, on the books,\u201d Kiehl said, objecting to the change Monday. \u201cI think it\u2019s a bad law, and we would do poorly to duplicate it.\u201d<\/p>\n In an attempt to try and win his colleagues\u2019 support, Kiehl argued that imprisoning people who don\u2019t pay fines only feeds a \u201cdestructive cycle\u201d of recidivism. Kiehl argued that under this system small fines become big fines, and big fines become jail time.<\/p>\n City Attorney Amy Mead said that the code change doesn\u2019t pertain to people who are unable to pay fines; it\u2019s about providing legal recourse for dealing with defendants who are able but unwilling to pay fines or restitution.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a way for the court to hold people accountable,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The Assembly passed the ordinance amending city code with a 7\u20132 vote. Kiehl and Assembly member Norton Gregory opposed the measure.<\/p>\n Under the new rules, \u201ca term of imprisonment imposed under this section may not exceed one day for each $50 of the unpaid portion of the fine or restitution or one year, whichever is shorter.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 Contact reporter Sam DeGrave at 523-2279 or sam.degrave@juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Per the Juneau Police Department\u2019s request, the Juneau Assembly appropriated about $19,000 to fund a body-camera initiative during its meeting Monday night. The most vocal opposition to the measure, which JPD has been moving toward for years, came from the only former member of the force serving on the Assembly. \u201cI understand the impetus behind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":19168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-19167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19167"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=19167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}