Houston police, Harris County Jail get new body cam rules
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The Houston Police Department and the Harris County Jail are implementing new body camera policies in an effort to increase transparency.
Driving the news: Police department body cameras will now be on all the time. Officers are required to activate their own cameras, but even if they don't, their body cameras will be turned on and a "record after the fact" feature will have backup footage.
- Plus: By the summer, all of the approximately 2,000 detention officers and law enforcement officers working in the jail will have body cameras, Harris County Sheriff's Office chief of staff Jason Spencer tells Axios.
Why it matters: The HPD announcement comes after two police shootings in December were not captured on the involved officers' body cameras.
- And the addition of body cameras in the jail — unusual for Texas — comes after 19 people died in Harris County Jail in 2023.
Catch up quick: Harris County Jail has long been overcrowded. And it's largely filled with people awaiting trial, the county's jail population dashboard shows.
- More than 60 detainees have died in jail custody since 2021, and the jail is consistently out of compliance with state standards, per Houston Public Media.
- Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, representing family members of people who died in the county jail, filed a federal lawsuit against Harris County in 2023 alleging the county and the sheriff's office deliberately neglected their responsibility to keep people safe in the jail.
- The other side: "Inmates in the Harris County Jail were more likely to walk out alive than if they'd been booked into the average Texas jail," the sheriff's office says, based on jail deaths compared with jail populations in other major cities across the state in 2023.
The latest: At a press conference held by Crump on Friday, county sheriff candidate Joe Inocencio shared videos appearing to show violence inside the jail. The sheriff's office has not confirmed the videos' authenticity.
What they're saying: "We want transparency to see if the inmates did something wrong or to see if the jailers did something wrong. But with transparency, we can tell who should be held accountable. So we welcome body cams, I think everybody welcomes transparency," Crump says.
Of note: The mother of Jaquaree Simmons, who died in custody, tells ABC13 that she doesn't believe body cameras will work.
- "They have cameras all over the jail, and that didn't help my child."
- The former detention center officer has been charged with manslaughter in connection with the death of her son.
Spencer tells Axios the jail's current mounted cameras have blind spots, and the sheriff's office says, "The body cams will increase transparency and help build public trust."
What we're watching: Whether these updates will bring more transparency to the public about what happens in the jail.