Credit: Cleveland Police video via The Marshall Project – Cleveland
A screen shot from police body-worn camera video from 2022 that shows the faces of officers blurred out. Cleveland has changed its policy and will no longer routinely shield officers’ images.
This article was published in partnership with The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletters, and follow them on Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and Facebook.
The City of Cleveland has long contended police have the right to blur the faces of officers seen in body camera video before the images are released to the public or news media. Often, in response to requests for the videos, the city would cite a state public records law exemption for releasing images of peace officers, claiming the city might potentially assign the officer to do undercover or plainclothes police work.
Mayor Justin Bibb’s administration is changing that policy, according to a law department memo dated July 24. In an effort to increase transparency and confidence in constitutional policing, the city will no longer blur the faces of uniformed officers when it releases video. It will still shield faces of officers who are currently undercover, are likely to be assigned to such a role in the “foreseeable future” or who are victims of a crime.
“Officer privacy must be respected but also must be balanced against constituents’ demands for accountability,” the memo states. Read the full memo.
The city’s public safety and police leadership are in agreement with the change, which they say is intended to strengthen the administration’s argument for ending federal oversight in the near future. The move to stop editing the officers’ faces should also speed up the city’s ability to release video from body-worn cameras to the public and news media.
Cleveland Police patrolmen’s union President Jeff Follmer said the city informed him of the policy change recently and that it isn’t an issue that falls under the union contract. Generally, he said the local news media use caution and consider officer safety and privacy when publishing videos and he hopes that continues.
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