MNPD now says it will review body camera footage for improperly censored language, after all

The Metro Nashville Police Department will conduct a review of body camera footage to find out if there were more instances of objectionable language being censored.

An MNPD internal investigation found that two IT employees edited swearing from body camera videos without permission. The employees were disciplined with written reprimands.

But the department does not know the scope of the problem.

More: Nashville’s police oversight board recommends body camera audit after incident with edited footage

“There was no record kept or log kept of words that were muted,” police spokesperson Don Aaron says. “We’re going to be looking at that, and we will have an answer as to how many words may have been muted in videos … At this point, I can’t give you a definitive number. We just don’t know.”

Finding out how widespread the problem was will mean reviewing more than 40 incidents over the last few years that were sent to the Community Oversight Board.

“If we hear objectionable words, or potentially offensive words, we’ll note that and then compare it with the video that was originally given to the COB,” Aaron says.

More: MNPD has no record of how much body camera footage was improperly edited. The oversight board says ‘it’s eroding trust.’

Originally, MNPD told the board it would not be investigating the problem further. But the board objected.

“They’re the ones that did this, and they’re the ones that need to be held accountable for it,” Jill Fitcheard, executive director of the oversight board, tells WPLN News.

Moving forward, the police department says footage will come with a written log of edits or redactions.