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

Nashville’s Community Oversight Board has more questions about the circumstances surrounding an edited body camera video. An MNPD IT employee removed swearing from body camera footage before giving it to the board for investigation.

An MNPD commander briefed the board about the internal investigation into the employee, which resulted in a written reprimand.

Commander Carlos Lara said that the employee didn’t do it intentionally. Instead, it was a habit he developed while working for Channel 3, the Metro Nashville Network.

“It was common to redact profanity from previously recorded demands before posting on YouTube to be viewed by the public,” Lara said.

But, it’s actually not that common for the Metro Nashville Network to edit swearing out of videos. MNN’s department policy requires any edits to videos be brought to Metro Legal, so an employee should not edit profanity without permission.

Still, oversight board member Makayla McCree wondered why edits hadn’t come up during the employee’s on-boarding.

“Where are the gaps within the training that would not have covered what could be redacted, what should not have been, as it specifically related to MNPD?” McCree asked.

The incident spurred the board to recommend an independent audit of MNPD’s body-worn cameras — to see how compliant the department is with its own policies.