Video footage of New York state corrections officers brutally beating an inmate last month was captured by a “fail-safe” feature on their body cameras that records even if an officer doesn’t activate the camera. Four of the officers involved in the beating of inmate Robert Brooks had their Axon Body 3 cameras powered on, but had not double-pushed a button to start recording. The cameras were rolling anyway. The cameras have a “video recall” function that continuously captures 30-minute clips of silent video. It appears likely the guards didn’t know the cameras had the function, reports Syracuse.com. An expert said he didn’t think the feature was well known among rank-and-file users of body cameras. “I think a lot of officers are going to be surprised, I think a lot of members of the public are going to be surprised that the cameras can do this,” said Ian Adams, a former police officer now on the University of South Carolina faculty. The video recall function can record up to 18 hours of video on a rolling basis — the oldest half-hour clip is deleted as a new one is saved. It is not clear whether prosecutors have been able to recover what could be up to 18 hours of video on each camera.
New York Attorney General Letitia James released all the footage her office had obtained — 30 minutes from each of the four officers’ body cameras. The videos show multiple corrections officers repeatedly punching and kicking Brooks in the groin, abdomen, face and back on Dec. 9 in the infirmary at Marcy Correctional Facility in Oneida County. Brooks was left bloodied and died the next day at a hospital. Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick, special prosecutor in the case, will not comment until a grand jury has acted on possible charges. The video recall function is a relatively new addition to Axon body cameras, Adams said. He isn’t aware of another high-profile case that has depended on footage obtained through the recall function. “It was intended that if there is a critical incident and the recording wasn’t captured, we still have a sort of fail-safe backup that investigators can get to that footage,” he said. The function is off by default, and must be manually turned by camera administrators. Spokesman Thomas Mailey of the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision said the department is also working with Axon to modify the current fleet of 9,000 body cameras to record both audio and video through the video recall function.