The City of Portland and Its Police Union Have Reached an Agreement on Body-Worn Cameras

The city of Portland and its police union have come to an agreement on policies governing the use of body-worn cameras, Mayor Ted Wheeler announced Thursday night.

Portlanders, however, will have to wait a little longer to find out what is in the compromise. The mayor’s announcement did not detail the agreed policies.

Portland is the last remaining major city in America not to strap cameras on its cops, despite having tested the technology more than a decade ago. Concerns about the cameras’ cost and subsequent disagreement over the details of how they would be used has delayed their rollout.

In February, the two sides declared an impasse in negotiations. The Portland Police Association wants cops to be allowed to review footage after using force before writing a report. The city and activists say viewing the footage could interfere with officers’ recollection and taint a subsequent investigation.

Last month, city commissioners hinted to WW that a compromise was imminent. Most major cities, including progressive San Francisco, have adopted compromise policies that allow pre-review in limited circumstances.

If the sides failed to come to a compromise, the disagreement would go before an arbitrator, further dragging out an already heavily delayed process.

Now, the agreement must survive federal scrutiny. The city signed a settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice a decade ago giving a federal judge wide oversight over the city’s policies. And both DOJ lawyers and U.S. District Judge Michael Simon have expressed skepticism about letting officers pre-review footage.

Still, the city is on a deadline, and the court had prodded it to get the technology out the door this year.

A recent report by OIR Group reviewing a series of Portland police shootings in 2018 and 2019 emphasized the consequences of the delay.

“Viewing body-worn camera footage has become such an integral part of our work with other agencies that it now feels like our review is incomplete if we have not seen the event unfold on our computer screens,” the report states. “We understand the [Portland Police] Bureau may soon be deploying body-worn cameras, and we applaud that development.”