By Mike Finney

DOVER — A Council on Police Training subcommittee on body-worn cameras is pressing forward on statewide standards for officers using the newly required equipment.

The group combed through many proposed rules during a meeting at the Dover Police Department on Thursday, in advance of a full COPT gathering next week.

“The COPT will be in full council on Tuesday, April 12 — hopefully with a virtual option — where the full council will actually make a decision on what, if anything, should be modified based on what this subcommittee will (present) to them,” said Patrick Ogden, associate vice president and the chief of police at the University of Delaware.

On Thursday, the subcommittee touched on issues like when officers would be required to turn their body cameras on and when they probably should turn them off, such as when an individual is having a mental crisis.

Another topic was whether municipal agencies should be able to craft their own rules.
Dover Police Chief Thomas Johnson said he was concerned that, if Delaware is seeking statewide body camera regulations, that this could turn into an even longer process. His agency will be donning the equipment in the coming weeks.

“If you get so deep in the weeds on regulation, we might not ever be done,” he said. “We’ll get substantive feedback from others interested, and now, we’re shaping a statewide policy document (that) would be a never-ending process.

“There’s a lot of good points here on many levels that I agree with, but I’m not sure they belong in the (regulations). They probably need to be part of a ‘best practices.’”

Chief Johnson added that adopting one standard statewide body camera policy probably isn’t in the interest of several municipalities.

“Local communities (should be able to) adopt policies based on (their own) regulation and not (on) the regulation of statewide policy, which I think a lot of folks are trying to push in that direction.

“But I think, also, at the same time, we’ve got to allow for the needs of the local municipalities and the needs of the local area to have more flexibility to adopt regulations that suit their needs.”

Kathie Cherry, who was representing the Governor’s Advisory Council for Exceptional Citizens at Thursday’s meeting, said she was thankful COPT is being transparent in its workings.

“I will take these comments back to our council, and I just wanted to let you know, we do appreciate the opportunity to be a part and to listen to this discussion,” she said. “Thank you very much for that.”

When it comes to body cameras, Chief Johnson agreed that there needs to be many layers of transparency.

“The whole idea of transparency is on many levels,” he said. “Accountability is one, but then there is also public information for other things.