Rule to be enforced on police cameras

Jeffrey Libby

Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2002 | 11:05 a.m.

After a Boulder City Police camera failed to record the injury of an elderly man during a traffic stop, officials said Tuesday that police officers will no longer be allowed the discretion to turn off video cameras when responding to emergency calls.

Police policy already prohibited that practice to begin with, but officers have turned off cameras in the past to avoid using "costly" tape when traveling with emergency lights on, City Attorney Dave Olsen said.

There are no plans to modify patrol cars to physically prevent officers from turning off the cameras, city officials said. And they declined to say whether they will reprimand the officer who turned off his windshield-mounted camera before helping with the arrest of 73-year-old Las Vegan Robert Parker.

Parker, who was stopped because his vehicle matched one allegedly involved in a felony injury hit-and-run accident in July near the Strip, didn't drop a cigarette when ordered to by police. A struggle ensued, he was thrown to the ground. He was hospitalized for six days with three broken ribs and other injuries.

Olsen said Tuesday that "when the officer hopped out of the patrol car, he may have hit the button, but apparently it didn't activate."

In an earlier interview, Chief Bill Turk said the officer may have failed to properly "power up" the camera at the start of his shift.

The officer, whose name has not been released, responded to back up Officer Joseph "Tony" Norte, who had pulled over Parker's vehicle. The responding officer's car had a video camera, Norte's did not, city officials said.

Six of the department's 20 vehicles have video cameras. Cameras were first installed in 1999.

According to Olsen, police officers have made it a common practice for sometime, even though it is against police policy, to manually turn off video cameras while driving at high speeds, their emergency lights and sirens engaged.

Trooper Alan Davidson of the Nevada Highway Patrol, the only other police force in the Las Vegas Valley with vehicle-mounted cameras, said troopers have no control over the cameras in their cars.

"As soon as they turn on the emergency red and blues, the cameras are on," he said.

Gary Peck, executive director of the Nevada chapter of American Civil Liberties Union, said the idea behind the cameras was to get a true sense of police encounters to protect both the police and the public.

"There was a reason these recording devices were installed in the first place so it's unfortunate that Boulder City needs to announce they're going to enforce a policy that's already on the books," Peck said.

"And in this particular case, the fact that the device was turned off raises serious questions about the officers' credibility."

The FBI on Aug. 21 launched an investigation of the incident at the request of Boulder City Police. On Saturday, the ACLU and Cal Potter, a Las Vegas attorney who specializes in police misconduct cases, agreed to represent Parker in a pending suit against Boulder City.

"There was a failure on the part of the police officer to recognize that No. 1, this was a frail, elderly man, which should have been obvious because he was in shorts and a T-shirt," Potter said.

"And No. 2, that he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease, or a similar disease. When he tried to comply with orders and was unable to do it, he suffered excessive force and extreme brutality, culminating in his hospitalization."

Boulder City officials abandoned their own investigation of the incident pending the outcome of an FBI investigation. But city and police officials have defended the conduct of the officers. They have characterized the officer's actions regarding the camera as accidental.

ACLU attorney Allen Lichtenstein said the situation "certainly doesn't inspire confidence."

"The criticism that the police department is not being consistent and not following their own rules seems pretty valid in this case," Lichtenstein said. The practice of selectively turning off cameras will no longer be permitted, City Mananger John Sullard said.

"I want to make that in cases where we run lights, we have tapes," Sullard said. "We have the cameras to back up our police officers and to have a document of what happens."