El Paso police to enhance transparency with more body camera footage releases

EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14/CBS4) — The El Paso Police Department said they will be releasing body camera footage more often to be transparent with the community.

Robert Gomez, a spokesperson with EPPD said the department is focused on releasing bodycam video related to officer-involved shootings and death in custody incidents.

“By no means do these videos replace an investigation, they’re in no way a replacement, we draw no conclusions from these videos, they are merely to give context,” Gomez said.

On Thursday, EPPD released a bodycam video of a death in custody that happened on April 14 in South Central El Paso.

RELATED: El Paso police release bodycam footage of man's arrest before he died in custody

The man later died at a local hospital while still in police custody.

“It’s a very fine balance between investigation and transparency and we’re trying to be right on that edge and keep that balance,” Gomez said.

In the video, you can see police officers trying to assist a man who was walking in and out of traffic on Alameda Avenue before the situation escalated and officers tased the man multiple times.

“What I can say is that as far as I can see from the video and understanding that’s not all the information available, I would say the officers didn’t have [the] intention of this person being killed in the end,” Marcelo Frias said.

People we spoke to believe this is a good step from the department.

“Being able to see firsthand what they go through when these things happen, I think it’s good. For me it's cool to see what the job really is instead of just making an assumption,” Valerie Anchondo resident.

In March, EPPD also released bodycam footage of an officer-involved shooting that left one man dead at a car wash on Doniphan.

RELATED: El Paso police release body cam footage of officer-involved shooting on Doniphan

“I would say that it's going to be very helpful, at least it would be good with transparency, it’s really good to see what goes on in some of these cases and I think it’s really important,” Giana Sandoval said.

EPPD said the April incident is still under investigation by Crimes Against Person, the Texas Rangers and EPPD’s Internal Affairs Dept.

Sign up to receive the top interesting stories from in and around our community once daily in your inbox.