Pass the People's Bodycam Ordinance!

We want a robust, well-written city ordinance that requires the city of Detroit to release police body-worn camera footage to the public any time a police officer causes harm to a community member, in a timely manner.

NO IFS, ANDS, OR BUTS.

Our Demands

• Bodycam footage must be released any time a police officer either causes harm or could have caused harm.
• Bodycam footage must be released within seven days of the incident.
• Bodycam footage must be available on a publicly-accessible website in its totality, with the only allowable edits being the blurring of faces or other details that may compromise the identity of the civilians depicted.

What We Don't Want

Right now, Detroit City Council is trying to pull the wool over our eyes. In November 2025, they passed a watered-down bodycam ordinance that was full of loopholes that would let the cops alter or pull the footage on a number of different technicalities. Council member Angela Whitfield-Calloway spent a year getting input from DPD, the country prosecutor, and others, but not once did she work with the community on this law, and it shows.

Here's what they came up with:

• Bodycam footage only has to be released only when an officer causes either death or "great bodily harm" to someone which would require them to be hospitalized.
• The cops can hold their bodycam footage for thirty days—a whole month—before they have to release it!
• The police union, the county prosecutor, and others can refuse to release the bodycam footage effectively on a whim, overriding our rights to transparency and accountability.
• Bodycam footage can be edited, cut together, and otherwise altered to create a narrative that paints the cops in the best possible light.

This isn't a law that was created with regular Detroiters in mind. It's a sham ordinance, something our elected officials can use to cover their butts while Detroit police kill, beat, and maim us and get away with it. Detroiters deserve transparency from our public officials and accountability from our police.

You can read the full text of that ordinance here.

Our Proposal

In 2024, the Coalition for Police Transparency and Accountability submitted a draft ordinance to city council that fulfilled our needs for a release policy for police body-worn camera footage. This ordinance was well-written and included our above demands as basic standards for what we deserve! Unfortunately, city council passed the watered-down ordinance instead.

We're not taking that lying down, and neither should you. We're demanding that city council throw out the knockoff version and pass the original:

Pass the People's Bodycam Ordinance!

You can read the full text of the People's Bodycam Ordinance here!