Rep. Don Beyer and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton plan to reintroduce legislation requiring federal police officers to use body and dashboard cameras when Congress returns in September.
The announcement on Wednesday comes after federal law enforcement officers were filmed in Washington using excessive force, obscuring their faces with masks, and refusing to identify their agencies.
Beyer, who represents Virginia’s 8th District, including Arlington County and Alexandria, and Norton first introduced the bill after U.S. Park Police officers shot and killed 25-year-old Bijan Ghaisar in November 2017. The House passed the bill in 2021.
The legislation would require all federal police officers, including those from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Park Police, to wear body cameras and use dashboard cameras in marked vehicles.
“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,” Norton said.
Beyer said many encounters between federal agents and the public have been captured on video by bystanders or journalists, raising questions about what incidents go unrecorded.
“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,” Beyer said.
Ghaisar was fatally shot in his car by Park Police officers in Fairfax County after he fled a car crash and was pursued down the George Washington Parkway. Footage of the shooting was released by the Fairfax County Police Department, which captured it on a cruiser’s dashboard camera.
Both Washington and Fairfax County require officers to wear body cameras and have dashboard cameras in marked vehicles.
Federal agents, some masked and unmasked, have been present in Alexandria this week.
Related Coverage
- Federal agents return to Chirilagua, arrest individual at bus stop day after construction worker detentions
- Community leaders condemn ICE arrests of construction workers in Alexandria’s Chirilagua neighborhood
- Alexandria schools reassure families that ICE agents have not visited campuses amid enforcement concerns
