Online
The Columbus Police Department released two hours of special operations group body camera footage for public viewing Monday afternoon.
The footage, spread across 13 videos, is recorded from officers’ Canyon Boykin and Johnny Branch’s cameras from Oct. 16, with one video from Oct. 15. Seven videos are from Boykin. Six are from Branch. Fellow SOG member Yolanda Young did not activate her camera that day.
Branch, Boykin and Young — each of whom were part of the now-disbanded special operations group — were the CPD officers involved in the police-involved shooting death of Ricky Ball on the night of Oct. 16. State officials continue to investigate Ball’s death.
At least one of the officers recorded footage from the incident, but not until after the shooting, rather than at the beginning, as mandated by CPD policy.
CPD did not release any footage from the Ball incident, as it remains under investigation.
Tony Carleton, the chief of police at the time of Ball’s death, has resigned from CPD.
The videos released Monday show the special operations group’s work on Oct. 16. Among the work they did in the hours leading up to Ball’s death: They served an arrest warrant. They made several traffic stops. They responded to a call of a possible suicide. They responded to a call of a possible shooter.
Fred Shelton, the interim chief of police, said the goal in releasing the footage is to show how officers act in their normal interactions with the public and to offer transparency.
“If something occurs, we want to be transparent with our actions,” Shelton said. “If there’s a question about how we’re doing things or our policies and procedures, we want people to see that. The whole goal is that the public knows that we’re being open and transparent and we don’t have anything to hide.”
As of midnight, the online videos had been played more than 5,500 times, according to Shelton. (The videos were played nine times in Japan, four times in Korea, two times in Germany and in Italy, city officials said.)
“The mayor, city council and I am thrilled with the response,” Shelton said this morning. “This is far more views than we anticipated and shows the interest in the work of the Columbus Police Department. The response to the viewings has been positive as citizens are able to see with their own eyes the work done by the law enforcement officers of Columbus. The videos show we have made mistakes and we take those mistakes quite seriously and continue to work to fix them.”
Shelton said future body camera footage releases may depend on who the Columbus City Council selects as the next permanent police chief. However, Shelton — who is one of 25 applicants for the position — said it’s something he’d like to continue, if allowed the opportunity.
“As long as I’m at the helm, it’s going to be active and hopefully this will continue to be done in the future,” Shelton said.
The videos show a range of incidents, from a traffic stop where Boykin voided two traffic tickets as a courtesy to the driver, to a domestic disturbance where officers arrested one man for disorderly conduct after he yelled profanity at his wife in front of them.
The city council fired Boykin after the Ball incident for repeated body camera policy violations and social media policy violations. Councilmen also suspended Branch and Young for 30 days without pay. The three officers are appealing their punishment to the civil service commission.
Shelton said the videos are also used as tools to improve CPD’s methods.
“This will allow us to train our officers to respond to citizens,” he said. “We can take this video and say ‘OK, let’s look at how this situation was handled. Is there a better way we can handle it?'”
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 34 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.