As part of a rewrite of state criminal laws, the new measure would bar public access to body camera and vehicle camera footage during ongoing investigations.
Republican lawmakers who control the Legislature crafted the language after police groups argued it would help more law enforcement agencies to take up the technology if they knew there would be some degree of privacy and judicial intervention.
Nixon signed the measure without comment. It came on a day when he rushed back to Missouri from a trip to Philadelphia in response to the shooting of a Ballwin police officer.
Approval of the law came nearly two years after months of unrest were triggered in Ferguson when Michael Brown was killed by Officer Darren Wilson while walking down a city street. Protesters argued that more would have been known about what caused the shooting if Wilson had been wearing a camera.
Ferguson began requiring uniformed officers to wear body cameras in September 2014.
During debate on the matter during the Legislature’s spring session, Brown’s mother, Lezley McSpadden, testified at numerous hearings in favor of additional body cameras.
In addition to barring access during an investigation, the new law could keep video closed to the public if it was taken in “nonpublic locations,” such as homes, schools and medical facilities.
In those cases, people who are in the video, their family members or their lawyers could access the footage. Others would need a court’s permission.
The law allows a judge to consider whether the release of the video to the public is “reasonably likely to bring shame or humiliation to a person of ordinary sensibilities.”
The measure moved through the House on 154-1 vote and won unanimous support in the Senate.
The legislation is Senate Bill 732.
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