Press Releases

After videos circulated online of federal police officers using excessive force to make arrests as part of President Trump’s unnecessary and inflammatory surge of law enforcement in D.C., Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) and Congressman Don Beyer (D-VA) announced that they’ll reintroduce their bill to require all federal police officers, including those from Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Park Police, to wear body cameras and use dashboard cameras in marked vehicles when Congress returns in September. 

Norton and Beyer first introduced their bill after U.S. Park Police officers shot and killed 25-year-old Bijan Ghaisar, who was unarmed, in November of 2017. The bill passed the House in 2021.

"With a president in the White House abusing his power over federal law enforcement to compel local governments to enforce his cruel and inhumane policies, our country needs this bill. For D.C., that need could not be more urgent,” Norton said.“President Trump’s unjustified and inflammatory surge of federal law enforcement officers in the District has resulted in violent arrests using excessive force, but without body cameras, we’re left to rely on videos filmed by onlookers and public reporting to learn what happened. Federal officers in D.C. have recently been filmed using excessive force during arrests, refusing to identify the agency they belong to, and obscuring their own faces. Body and dashboard camera requirements would provide much-needed transparency and a chance at accountability for victims during this unprecedented timein the nation’s capital.” 

“Every day Washingtonians are confronted with new outrages from Trump’s unwanted and unjustified occupation of D.C., including arrests using excessive force that put people in unnecessary danger,” Beyer said. “Many of these encounters have been captured on video taken by bystanders or journalists, and I cannot help but wonder what we are not seeing because it is not caught on video. I have the same concern with ICE raids in Northern Virginia, which like the federal escalation in DC, are carried out by masked agents in unmarked vehicles who give no justification for their actions. The Administration’s use of such draconian tactics is designed to stoke fear and intimidate law-abiding people who have done nothing wrong. These abuses of power cry out for transparency and accountability, and our bill would answer that need. Every one of these officers should be wearing a body camera.”

Ghaisar was fatally shot in his car by Park Police officers in Fairfax County, Virginia, after he fled a car crash and was pursued by officers down George Washington Parkway. Footage of the shooting was released by the Fairfax County Police Department, which captured it on a cruiser’s dashboard camera. Without that footage, Ghaisar’s family and the public would have had no access to the circumstances surrounding Ghaisar’s death. The District of Columbia and Fairfax County both require officers to wear body cameras and have dashboard cameras in marked vehicles.