Ohio residents may soon lose easy access to public police and jail film after a controversial item sneaked into the outgoing legislature’s big bill package at the end of the year.
Ohioans may soon lose easy access to public police and jail film after a contentious item was inserted into the outgoing legislature’s massive bill package at the end of the session.
Late Thursday night, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed H.B. 315 into law, a nearly 450-page omnibus bill that, among other things, will allow law enforcement agencies to charge the public for access to police videos such as body cameras, dash cams, and jail surveillance footage.
According to News 5 Cleveland and the Dayton Daily News, the new law allows agencies to charge a “estimated cost” of up to $75 per hour of footage to assist cover for labor costs associated with video processing. The cost will be levied before footage is released and must be limited to $750 per request.
In response to criticism for authorizing the provision, DeWine told News 5 that he is a “strong proponent” of police cameras and has no intention of limiting access to film that is public record.
“Law enforcement-worn body cameras and dashboard cameras have been a major improvement for both law enforcement investigations and accountability,” he stated in a separate news release late Thursday night.
“However, I am sensitive to the fact that this changing technology has affected law enforcement by oftentimes creating unfunded burdens on these agencies, especially when it comes to the often time-consuming and labor-intensive work it takes to provide them as public records.”
Republican state Rep. Bill Seitz, who sponsored the bill, previously told News 5 that the provision “only applies if you want the public office to make a copy of a video record, only if it relates to law enforcement, and only if the public office opts to charge.”
He stated that anybody can still “inspect the records for free and make your own video of the video with your own phone or camera.”
However, Niraj Antani, a Republican state senator, told the outlet that he is “deeply concerned” that the charge to make film public will be “burdensome.
“When I sponsored HB 425, which established public record law for police worn body camera videos, our goal was to ensure the public and news media had clear access to body camera videos of public concern,” Antani reported for News 5. “Certainly, the cost of properly blurring out the videos and storage was something we discussed at length with our law enforcement partners.”
Jonathan Entin, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University, previously discussed how the condition may affect whether police footage is released.
“People are talking about how it is hard to afford groceries these days, or clothing or the car or your medicines, right?” Entin informed News 5 when the bill was originally enacted by the legislature. “If you have all of those things, paying $75 per hour for video — even for one hour — may exceed your budget, so you may not ask.