| RIPTIDE | ▼ MIAMI HIT RECORD accused of wrongdoing as compared to their colleagues who did not have assigned cam- eras. At the same time, body cams have shined a light on misconduct by officers, illu- minating the truth in contentious interac- tions between civilians and police. After studying four years worth of police A incidents, the City of Miami’s Civilian Inves- tigative Panel (CIP) reports that body cams are an overwhelmingly positive force for MPD, but the department needs more cam- eras and better training. “Body-worn camera footage is one of the best tools we have for accountability and transparency. If we don’t continue adapting the program and find best practices, it can easily fall into something that isn’t useful,” says Rodney Jacobs, interim executive direc- tor of the CIP. The CIP is a collection of civilian volun- teers who investigate complaints of police misconduct and issue recommendations to the city and the police chief based on their findings. In many investigations, the panel uses footage from body-worn cameras as- signed to MPD’s patrol officers and public service aides to come to factual conclusions related to a complaint. In their recent 2022 Body Worn Camera Report (attached at the end of this article), GET MORE NEWS & COMMENTARY AT MIAMINEWTIMES.COM/NEWS ▼ MIAMI-DADE DIGITAL DIVIDE N 44 MIAMI-DADE’S AGING RECORDS SYSTEM IS NOT JUST AN INCONVENIENCE. BY NAOMI FEINSTEIN eed to look at a traffic court paper or pull up a criminal case document? Across Florida, it’s usually an easy task with the advent of electronic case manage- ment: Cue up a county clerk’s website, and you can view the documents you need with the snap of a finger. It’s a quick, straightforward process — unless you’re dealing with a case filed in Miami-Dade, which happens to have the largest county court system in Florida. Despite advancing technology and the near- ubiquitous digitization of court records state- wide, the clerk’s office for the Eleventh Judicial Circuit in Miami-Dade does not yet have a sys- tem in place for quickly accessing digital criminal and traffic records. MOST POLICE BODY-CAM VIOLATIONS OCCURRED IN THE CITY’S MAJORITY- BLACK DISTRICT. BY JOSHUA CEBALLOS new study has found that since 2018, body-worn cam- eras helped double the exon- eration rate of Miami Police Department (MPD) officers Officers are allowed under MPD’s depart- mental orders to turn off their camera audio while speaking about sensitive information or talking with their supervisors, but CIP’s analysis found that in many cases, officers would not unmute their cameras after finish- ing their conversation with superiors. The problem with leaving the cameras muted, Jacobs explains, is that the audio of- ten provides key details in a police call, espe- cially when there are complaints of an officer being discourteous. “Video only tells one part of the story. To be able to discern what is happening in an in- teraction, you need the audio for all the infor- mation to come through. It can also erode public trust when an officer mutes their au- dio during a call,” he asserts. The CIP recommends that MPD imple- ment a policy so officers do not mute their cameras during “huddles” with their supervi- sors but allow the department’s Virtual Polic- ing Unit to redact any sensitive information out of the recording when they review the footage before releasing it. Other recommendations include procur- Photo by artas/iStock Body-worn cameras have helped double the exoneration rate of Miami Police officers. the panel compiled data from 254 cases in- volving body cams from 2018 to 2021 to de- termine how effectively MPD is using its nearly 800 body-worn cameras and where the department needs to make changes. Of the 254 reviewed cases, CIP found 122 separate body-worn camera policy violations in 73 individual cases. The vast majority of these violations, 62 percent (75 out of 122), occurred in the City of Miami’s Commission District 5, which consists of predominantly Black communities. “The people that make up the smallest demographic in your city have the most New Times checked Florida’s ten most popu- lated counties, and Miami-Dade is the only one without online access to these types of cases. (Miami-Dade does have online access in the civil division, where lawsuits are filed.) The Miami-Dade circuit court serves the county’s more than 2.6 million residents and is one of the largest trial courts in the country. If you want a Miami-Dade criminal or traffic record, you have to either go to a court office in person and view the file the old-fashioned way or make a formal public records request outlin- ing the case numbers and items needed from the docket, which can be a difficult process de- pending on the volume of records sought. This is a hurdle for members of the general public and legal professionals alike. And it’s not just a matter of convenience. Criminal defense attorneys have been strug- gling with the outdated system for years. As it stands, their access to their clients’ documents is delayed at a critical juncture at the outset of a criminal case. complaints and most violations against them,” Jacobs says. Across the five districts, 31 of the com- plainants were Black, 20 were Hispanic, six were white, and 14 were of unknown race. District 5, which has the largest percent- age of Black residents, had five times more body-worn camera violations than the dis- trict with the next highest number of viola- tions, District 3. The most common violation across the de- partment involved officers improperly mut- ing their cameras while interacting with the public. “Miami-Dade has been behind the times “WE AREN’T ABLE TO READILY VIEW DOCUMENTS SUCH AS ARREST AFFIDAVITS ONLINE.” technologically, for certain,” says Miami attorney Brett Schwartz of Hager & Schwartz. “It’s a real problem. We aren’t able to readily view docu- ments such as arrest affidavits online.” Schwartz says that the clerk’s office lately has been quicker with turning around manual requests for court doc- uments, as outcry over the outdated system has been growing. But the system is still slower and more cumbersome than the fully dig- ital databases available in other South Florida courts, he says. According to the attorney, budget problems have often been cited as the reason for delays in the digital transition. The clerk’s office says it is working with Pio- neer Technology Group to develop an online case ing more body-worn cameras and assigning them to sergeants, as 14 percent of all civilian complaints involved sergeants, the majority of whom are not assigned body cams. The panel also proffers that the police should offer remedial training for officers who repeatedly violate body-worn camera policy. Automatic activation of nearby body-worn cameras when an officer discharges a taser or draws a firearm would be helpful as well, the CIP says. Jacobs says that MPD already received the report a week in advance, and commissioners will have it sent to them by next week. As this is the first study of its kind since MPD started using cameras in 2016, he hopes it will serve as a foundational analysis to help the city im- prove police practices. management system for criminal documents and aims to have the process completed in about three years. The tentative completion date, which local criminal defense attorneys say has been re- peatedly pushed back, is October 2025. In its adopted budget for the fiscal year 2021- 2022, the clerk states that it’s banking on $22.2 million in revenue, including $6.7 million from the countywide general fund, $14.7 million from pro- prietary fees, and $700,000 in interagency transfers. This year’s adopted budget is a $1.3 million increase from last year’s budget but slightly less than the 2019-2020 budget. Since the 2018-2019 fiscal year, the office’s expenditures have grown from $18.4 million to this year’s anticipated $22.2 million. According to Schwartz, the county clerk’s budget appears consistent with other clerks’ op- erations in densely populated South Florida counties, yet Miami-Dade remains an outlier with its antiquated file-viewing system. [email protected] MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 NOVEMBER 10-16, 2022 NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | ART | STAGE | NIGHT+DAY | METRO | RIPTIDE | LETTERS | CONTENTS |
