Worcester Police Withhold Many Use-Of-Force Body Camera Videos

WORCESTER, MA — On at least 23 occasions between May and October 2019, body cameras recorded Worcester police officers using force in some form. But the department has declined to release video from all but three incidents, citing various exemptions under the Massachusetts public records law.

The released footage provides a glimpse at how Worcester police use force, but the withholding of most of the videos underscores an overlooked aspect of bodycam policy: that it's often very difficult for the public to view videos, even though the devices are pitched as way to hold police accountable.

Last May, Worcester police kicked off a six-month bodycam pilot program. At the time, Chief Steven Sargent highlighted "transparency" as one of the reasons why the department was embarking on the pilot.

"We hope to use our body cameras to increase transparency, resolve complaints, de-escalate volatile situations, and improve our training," Sargent said. "Our officers do amazing work day in and day out, and we have confidence that this will be captured in the footage."

Worcester police union president Dan Gilbert has also called bodycams an "unbiased third-party account of circumstances."

Worcester is on the march toward a permanent bodycam program. Worcester City Councilor Sean Rose recently proposed spending at least $3 million to outfit every officer with a bodycam by January. Rose has also highlighted transparency as a reason to get the cameras — but acknowledges the city has a lot of work to do to create policy that allows the public to access bodycam footage.

"If we don't offer a level of transparency, then what's the point of doing the bodycams at all?" Rose said this week.

In withholding many of the bodycam videos, Worcester police cited exemptions under state law that protect victims of rape and domestic violence, juveniles, and several other broad exemptions. The department declined an interview request pending a forthcoming report to City Council on the bodycam pilot program.

Videos show tackling, aiming gun

Worcester police released four videos to Patch showing use of force; two of them were from the same incident. None of the videos show egregious actions like what was seen in the footage of George Floyd's death.

In one 17-minute video from August, a Worcester police officer, with his gun drawn, confronts a man suspected of car theft. Officer Anthony Lombardozzi drives into a Webster Square Mobil gas station and pulls up behind a red sedan that had been reported stolen. Lombardozzi steps out of his cruiser with his gun out. The driver sticks his hands out the driver's side window in a sign of surrender.

"Keep your hands where we can see them," Lombardozzi commands as he approaches the driver's side window.

The man in the car, later identified as Dylan Cournoyer, repeatedly asks the officer what's happening, but was placed in handcuffs before Lombardozzi explains that the car had been reported stolen. Cournoyer tells Lombardozzi that he borrowed the car from his grandparents. Lombardozzi calls the grandmother, who says Cournoyer went out for cigarettes two days prior, and didn't have permission to use the car.

Cournoyer pleads with Lombardozzi to call his grandmother back because she probably doesn't understand that he could end up in jail. Lombardozzi refuses, and Cournoyer ends up in a police van.

Two videos recorded on May 6, 2019, show the arrest of a man accused of a drug violation. The first video begins with an officer pulling up alongside a man sitting on a scooter outside a Grafton Street business. The man takes off running from the officer, weaving in and out of traffic. The chase ends when the officer tackles the man in the parking lot of a car dealership.

The first video ends at 5:26 p.m. with the officer tackling and holding the man on the ground. The second video picks up again at 5:37 p.m., with several officers standing around the handcuffed suspect, who's seated on a stoop.

Whatever happened in the gap, the man who was arrested appears to be OK — he talks to officers, smiles a few times, and even tries to level with the officer who tackled him.

"You going to screw me?" the man whispers.

"Am I going to?" the officer responds. "No, I'm usually a decent person. I'm not going to throw the book at you, if that's what you're asking."

The final video, which is about an hour, documents a May 3 incident where a man was seen brandishing a gun along Penn Avenue. The video doesn't show any use of force, but it does show the shirtless suspect angrily talking to police, challenging them to let him out of handcuffs to fight.

Worcester's bodycam pilot program lasted from May to November 2019. Twenty officers wore the cameras. The officers created 7,707 videos and each video was placed in one of nine categories: use of force; arrest; reports; criminal summons/warrants; traffic stops; investigative stops; no report/code 160; assisting officer/no report; and training.

Exemptions block videos

Massachusetts does not have a special law that blocks the release of police bodycam footage — at least not yet.

Last summer, Somerville state Rep. Denise Provost, proposed a new law that would create a state code on how bodycams can be used. The bill included an exemption for bodycam videos under the state public records law.

Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin, who oversees public records, asked for that provision to be removed from the law, calling it "unacceptable."

"Allowing police departments to withhold any footage captured on these cameras would interfere with the public's ability to oversee their own government," Galvin wrote in a letter to lawmakers last summer.

Provost's bill went nowhere, but parts of it have reappeared in a police reform bill that passed the state Senate early Tuesday morning, minus the public records exemption.

Language in the Massachusetts public records law is already broad enough to allow governments to block the release of a range of items. Worcester police employed several key exemptions to withhold many of the use-of-force videos.

Eleven of the Worcester use-of-force videos involved rape, sexual assault or domestic violence. Police cited a state law that bans the release of "all communications between police officers and victims of such offenses or abuse" to withhold those bodycam videos. The department did not immediately say if the videos were withheld because they involved victims, or just people arrested in connection with sex and domestic abuse crimes.

One of the videos contained details about one person's medical status and could not "be sufficiently redacted to withhold the protected information." Another video involved a juvenile. Six more videos were withheld because they contained information about open investigations or cases that had been referred for prosecution.

Rose says that the city needs to do a better job providing access to records. As part of his proposal, he wants Worcester to hire a registrar to oversee the program, either working inside or outside the police department.

He recalls reviewing a bodycam policy scorecard put together by the group Upturn. Nearly every city got a negative mark for allowing public access to videos, he remembers.

"We need a bodycam program that's sophisticated, smart and user-friendly for everyone," he said.

Some states, like Texas, Oregon and North Dakota, ban the release of police bodycam footage outright, except in limited cases where public interest is high, according to the Urban Institute.

Apart from Worcester's pilot program, police in seven cities and towns in Massachusetts use bodycams. Boston police have a detailed policy for bodycams but a relatively short section on how the public can access the footage.

"Video Evidence Unit shall respond to public information requests ... in accordance with all applicable state laws and regulations," the policy says, referring to the state public records law.

Worcester bodycam policy

Rose will present his $3 million bodycam plan at the next City Council meeting July 21. If his order passes, it will be up to City Manager Edward Augustus Jr. to figure out how to find the money to buy the equipment.

On a parallel track, the Council's Public Safety Committee, chaired by Kathleen Toomey, will begin to form the city's bodycam policy.

Meanwhile, the group Defund WPD has been working to keep the police department budget from growing. Spending $3 million on a bodycam program — plus more to keep the program going in the long term — is the wrong move, the group said in a statement Friday.

In particular, the group said that the police department has not delivered a report on the 2019 bodycam pilot to the City Council, which shows a lack of transparency. (Rose said that report will likely come in time for the July 21 meeting.)

"For body camera programs to have even a minimal effect on police behavior, participating police departments require a culture of transparency and a reliable internal system for accountability," the group said in a statement on Friday. "Due to the WPD’s decades-long history of hiding misconduct records from the public and its resistance to both civilian and governmental oversight, we do not have faith that WPD meets this criteria."

Rose says that he hears Defund WPD's concerns, but also hears from a lot of people "in the middle" who want bodycams. The cameras are one way to address concerns about police accountability, but not the only way, he said.

"We're going to look at doing everything we can to address racism and systemic racism," Rose said this week. "There are a lot of tentacles to this thing, and this is one of them."

Clarification: A description of a car theft in this article has been exapnded to clarify that the accused thief did not have permission from a grandparent to use the vehicle.