Stop Showing Police Bodycam Videos on the Evening News

Earlier this month the bodycam video of the fatal shooting of Sonya Massey in her own home was released. For those who have not heard about the case, Ms. Massey had called 911 to report a possible prowler. Two deputies responded and, ultimately, Sean Grayson shot her in the head. Grayson was fired from the Sangamon County, Illinois Sheriff's Department two weeks after he killed Sonya Massey. Grayson has since been charged with three counts of first-degree murder and one count each of aggravated battery with a firearm, and official misconduct. Sadly, the NBC Nightly News chose to air the bodycam video of Sonya Massey's murder upon its release, and I have to think the other networks did the same. I know that many news sites embedded the video in stories and set it to autoplay. To me, this is totally unacceptable.

The simple fact is that for many of us, police bodycam videos of the killings of individuals serve as nothing more or less than triggers for post-traumatic stress. From speaking to other survivors of victims of police violence I know I am not alone in this. Actress Vanessa Marquez, who was shot in the back and killed by officers of the South Pasadena Police Department, was my dearest friend. Ever since then I have been unable to watch any police bodycam video without serious trauma to my psyche. When the bodycam video of Vanessa's killing was released, it was aired by many news outlets. I watching one of our local television stations one Sunday night when Inside Edition came on. Unfortunately, they had a preview of a story on the shooting of Vanessa at the start of the show. It was bad enough that they claimed she was "mentally disturbed," but they also included a portion of the bodycam video. It was only someone calling Vanessa's name in a shrill voice (I am guessing it was one of her killers), but it was enough to give me nightmares for the next two weeks. I have since forced myself to watch portions of the bodycam video, but always with the same result. Here I want to state I have never watched the footage of her death, as I suspect I could never recover from that. What makes all of this sadder still is that I know mine is not an isolated case.

Here I have to emphasize that police bodycam videos of killings by law enforcement officers not only cause stress in survivors of victims of police shootings, but African Americans in general. A study published in the Fall issue of Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology and conducted by Glenna L. Read of the University of Georgia Grady College; Harry Y. Yan of Texas A&M; and Rachel L. Bailey of Florida State University revealed that viewing violent police bodycam videos by African Americans can result in difficulty sleeping, feelings of being on guard, and even symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. A 2018 study published in The Lancet about police killings showed that Black people continued to be affected by the killing of an unarmed Black person months after they first heard about it. I have not read any studies on the effects of police bodycam videos on Latinos or Native Americans, but I have to suspect they would be similar to the effects they have upon Black people. After all, Latinos and Native Americans are also disproportionately shot and killed by law enforcement.

Here I want to state that I do not oppose the release of police bodycam videos. They can and often do reveal police misconduct and unprofessional behaviour. Indeed, I have to wonder if Sean Grayson would have been charged with Sonya Massey's murder if the video had not been released. That having been said, I do wish the media would show some discretion with regard to police bodycam videos so that we survivors of victims of police violence do not see them by accident and as a result experience post-traumatic stress. To me, the best solution would be for media outlets to embed them on a webpage with a robots.txt restricting search engines from spidering the page so that the video does not appear in search results. This would give those curious about any given bodycam video a chance to see it while keeping survivors of victims of police violence from seeing it and experiencing post-traumatic stress. As to the evening newscasts, they could simply direct people to the web page.

The sad fact is that many Black people, Latinos, and Native Americans have been killed over the years. The George Floyd Protests of 2020 do not seem to have decreased them in the slightest. That means that as time goes by there are more and more survivors of victims of police violence. None of us should be subjected to police bodycam video of another killing by police that could result in post-traumatic stress.