Columbus police officer fired for posting videos to YouTube

Columbus Division of Police fired officer Spencer Badger on Tuesday for bypassing public records to download police body camera footage for personal use.

Badger’s firing, which followed an internal investigation related to footage he posted to his Columbus Police Body Camera channel on YouTube and first reported by Matter News in November, was recommended by police chief Elaine Bryant and upheld by public safety director Kate McSweeney-Pishotti. 

“The findings of this investigation are unambiguous. Officer Badger admits to violating division policy on multiple occasions,” McSweeney-Pishotti said in a statement. “He admits to improperly and repeatedly downloading law enforcement materials to a personal device. As he told investigators, ‘I went back and looked at the policy again and I realized that sure, it’s written in black and white, pretty hard to miss.'”

In a statement, Brian Steel, president of FOP Lodge #9, wrote that while Badger had violated CPD policy with his actions, the officer’s termination amounted to “excessive punishment” and the union planned to take his case to arbitration.

The internal investigation was triggered by allegations that on two occasions Badger had bypassed the Public Records Unit to access and download body camera footage, according to records obtained by Matter News. 

One of the videos obtained absent a public records request by Badger shows a woman writhing on the ground, with an accompanying report describing her as in the midst of an accidental drug overdose. Her hands and face are covered in dirt, and in posting the footage to his YouTube channel, Badger tagged it with the headline “Officers find a woman eating mud.” 

“Clearly, he’s not thinking about the citizen when he’s posting this [footage]. He’s not thinking about their emotional state, or the impact [sharing the video will have] on their personal or professional life,” said Dr. Chenelle Jones, the assistant dean of community engagement and chair of public safety programs at Franklin University and a member of the city’s Civilian Police Review Board. “He’s probably thinking about how many views and likes he’s going to get. … He’s not thinking about the long-term effects of these videos, which are usually capturing people on their worst days, and usually in some interaction with law enforcement, which adds a whole other layer. And then he really only provides a short clip, along with his commentary. He doesn’t show what led up to the situation or give any perspective from the person involved. And that’s problematic, because we’re forming a narrative from a very skewed, very one-sided view of the incident.”

In addition, on “seven or eight” other occasions, Badger allegedly accessed footage from Axon, the network on which Columbus police body camera files are stored, and downloaded videos to a personal device in infringement of division policy, according to audio interviews conducted with Badger by investigators from the Columbus Police Internal Affairs Bureau and obtained by Matter News. Badger was relieved of his post on May 5 and had been serving desk duty pending the results of the investigation. 

Badger confirmed his firing in a video posted this afternoon and titled “I have been fired because of this YouTube Channel,” in which he stated he was “100 percent positive” he would get his job back within the year. He also announced that in the wake of his termination, his YouTube channel had been monetized, and he included a PayPal link soliciting donations. “I’m going to ask that you help me pay my bills,” he said.