Madison’s police body-camera report didn’t disclose a researcher’s connection to Axon

The researcher serves on an advisory council for a leading body-cam vendor.

A paid consultant for body-camera manufacturer Axon conducted research for a Madison Police Department (MPD) study of a body-worn camera (BWC) pilot program earlier in 2024. His connections to the company are not disclosed in a recently completed MPD report that presents him as an independent third party.

MPD Chief Shon Barnes submitted the report, available in full at this link, to Madison’s Common Council and Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway on November 15. The report is the culmination of a 90-day test of body cameras in MPD’s North District. The department contracted with Dr. Broderick Turner, a marketing professor at Virginia Tech, to evaluate how the cameras would impact behavior and attitudes, on the part of both police officers and the public. Turner serves on Axon’s Ethics and Equity Advisory Council (EEAC), which the company’s website describes as “an independent body of U.S. and U.K. based community leaders, restorative justice advocates, and academics whose expertise is leveraged to enable Axon to responsibly develop and deploy new technologies.”

Turner acknowledged to City officials during a Common Council meeting in April 2022 that Axon pays him “a couple thousand bucks a year” for his work on the EEAC. His previous research has reached mixed conclusions about the impact and potential of body cameras. While earning his PhD at Northwestern University, Turner headed up a study that undermines the notion that body-cam footage provides an objective or impartial view of events. Turner did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

Eleazer Hunt, who joined MPD in 2022 to fill a newly created role called Police Director of Data, Innovation and Reform, acknowledged the report’s lack of disclosure in a phone interview on Monday.

“At the most, it was an oversight on our part,” Hunt says. “We had a whole team working on assembling the report. Dr Turner’s research [in Appendix A of the report] is standalone, but the larger first portion of that report was a team effort here, and then the costing was also a team effort put together by the folks that really focused on the finances, so it was an oversight, and we certainly weren’t trying to hide or misdirect anything at all.”

Turner does not present Madison’s body-cam pilot as a slam dunk, and cautions that a 90-day study based on responses from a relatively small number of officers and community members can only tell us so much. He writes in the MPD report that he found “negligible change to community attitudes and beliefs towards the Madison Police Department due to the pilot” and that the pilot had “no detectable effect” on metrics like arrests and citations. Turner does note that “the pilot program has been effective in demonstrating that body-worn cameras may bring higher police capability on evidence collecting with no significant change on police behavior” and writes that “community members in our focus groups welcome BWC for their potential to increase transparency and build trust between community and police officers.” (“May” and “potential” are huge words in this report. It repeatedly states that “BWC may aid in furthering trust building and providing transparency,” but offers few solid claims about what impacts the cameras have actually had so far in Madison.)

Still, Turner has taken an unambiguous stance on the question of whether police should adopt body cameras in the first place. “All officers should wear bodycams as those cameras essentially become dashcams for the other officers,” he said in a 2020 press release from Virginia Tech. And that is a central question, as Barnes asks the Common Council to help MPD roll out a department-wide body-cam program by 2027.

Axon, formerly known as TASER International, is best known for making the ubiquitous Taser line of electrical stun weapons. The company has also become a leading vendor of police body cameras, software, dash cameras, drones, and other technology marketed to police agencies around the world. It officially announced its renaming in 2017, signaling its growing emphasis on cameras and cloud services. (“Moving away from a name synonymous with electrocuting people may have been a strong impetus, too,” The Verge dryly noted at the time.)

MPD has used Tasers since 2003—long before body cameras became as popular and lucrative as they are today—which means that Axon is a current City vendor. Axon has been holding numerous demo events in the Madison area in recent years, as both MPD and the Dane County Sheriff’s Office geared up to test out body cameras.

This isn’t the first time that MPD and Axon raised ethical concerns in their drive for the citywide adoption of body cameras. Isthmus reported in February 2022 that Axon was co-hosting and paying for an informational community event on body cameras. MPD did not disclose Axon’s role in the event until reporter Dylan Brogan discovered it. (Brogan now works as the City of Madison’s Communications Manager.) At the time, Barnes waved off concerns about transparency and conflicts of interest. Barnes did not reply to Tone Madison‘s request for comment for this story.

MPD’s report doesn’t mention Turner’s work with Axon, even though it provides a summary of his credentials and experience. It does mention that “The BWC [body-worn camera] units were loaned by MPD’s existing dash camera vendor for the duration of experiment.” This is a reference to Panasonic. If MPD expanded its body-camera program on a permanent basis, the City would need to carry out a competitive purchasing process for more cameras and software, at which point Axon and any other vendor could submit bids.   

The report does, however, tout the benefits of working with Turner, noting: “an outside researcher is not associated with the organization, and they are not biased for or against the organization.” An MPD press release marking the start of the pilot program in April simply described Turner as “an independent researcher.”

Coverage of the MPD report in Madison media outlets over the past week, including a Wisconsin State Journal story that characterizes the pilot program as a “successful trial,” did not initially mention Turner’s association with Axon.

Downplaying and disclosure

Several researchers and advocates Tone Madison contacted for this story agree that MPD’s report should have disclosed Turner’s work with Axon, even if that connection ultimately didn’t impact his findings.

“It’s notable that MPD hired a respected expert in the field for the BWC pilot study. However, MPD has an ethical responsibility to disclose that the lead researcher receives compensation from a company that sells BWCs,” says Karen Reece, President of Madison’s Urban Community Arts Network and Vice President of Research and Education at the Nehemiah Center for Urban Leadership Development. 

Reece’s career has spanned science and social-justice advocacy—she earned a PhD in physiology from UW-Madison, but is best known for her work advocating for greater equity in Madison’s music and arts world. That has included collaborating with UW-Madison sociology researchers on a 2017 study debunking the perception that hip-hop shows are especially prone to violence. Reece served on a City task force that in 2018 issued 31 recommendations for using public policy to reduce discrimination against artists of color. More recently, Reece worked on a first-of-its-kind study analyzing the economics of Madison’s music community, part of the Greater Madison Music City (GMMC) initiative. (Full disclosure: GMMC is a Tone Madison sponsor. Please see our editorial independence policy, which bars sponsors from any involvement in our editorial decisions.) All of this gives Reece some insight into the intersection of empirical research and policymaking.

“The reader has a right to consider potential bias,” Reece says.

Dorothea Salo, a faculty member at UW-Madison’s Information School, says that Turner himself did the right thing by disclosing his connection to Axon, but that MPD itself still has a responsibility to include that information in its report.

“I do think MPD should have disclosed Turner’s affiliations in the report,” Salo writes in an email to Tone Madison. “Not doing so makes them look like they’re doing a shifty coverup, and it harms the public’s ability to assess decision-making processes at MPD.”

Salo, whose research and teaching areas include digital privacy and information security, says that she thinks Turner did the right thing in disclosing his involvement with Axon to City officials, and that his involvement isn’t necessarily an “immediate no-go.”

“MPD’s behavior is a little more nebulous to me,” Salo adds. “Sometimes expertise is where you find it—and sometimes that’s industry!”

Salo also draws a distinction between bias toward a particular vendor specifically and “a bias on MPD’s part toward bodycams generally.” The latter is plain to see, given how vigorously MPD has lobbied for body cameras over the years. 

Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council and a veteran Madison journalist, questions the lack of disclosure from a transparency standpoint.

“I think the report should have disclosed the researcher’s connection to the body cam manufacturer, because the public is entitled to know of this potential conflict,” Lueders says.

Several City officials this week downplayed the significance of Turner’s work with Axon, expressing a far less urgent attitude about the importance of disclosure.

Hunt notes that Turner had informed City officials ahead of the study about his work with Axon. Hunt also emphasizes that Turner’s role in the study was to evaluate data, not the cameras themselves, and that Turner wouldn’t be involved in any eventual purchasing processes of new body-cam equipment. Tone Madison followed up, asking Hunt what MPD’s reasoning was for not disclosing Turner’s connection to Axon in the report.

“Axon BWCs were not part of the study. The cameras used were loaned for testing by the vendor [Panasonic] currently contracted for our dash cams and audio recording units,” Hunt replied. “There is no nefarious reason or intent for not specifically stating the connection, as it was already known.” 

MPD had initially planned to test out cameras from Panasonic, Axon, and Motorola during the pilot program, as The Cap Times reported in 2023. Hunt says the logistical challenges of balancing cameras from three different vendors (and potentially multiple software platforms) eventually proved impractical for the pilot program’s budget and 90-day timeframe. “The officers would have had to shift gears every 30 days,” Hunt says. “It was a lot simpler to be able to evaluate on just one system.”

Still, Turner’s connection to Axon might not be “already known” to people looking at the report with much background or context. That’s why it’s important to disclose relevant information in context, even if it’s easy to find elsewhere. For example, Tone Madison recently published a guest column from Gregory Gelembiuk, who works as a Data Analyst for Madison’s Office of the Independent Police Monitor. Gelembiuk was writing specifically about City budget discussions affecting his job. It’s easy to look up Gelembiuk online and figure that out, and it doesn’t undermine the credibility of his expertise. But we would have been remiss to not note it explicitly, on our own website, alongside Gelembiuk’s arguments. Gelembiuk discusses his role directly within the piece, and notes it in the author bio; the column’s sub-headline frames it as “An inside perspective on the needs and challenges facing the City’s fledgling oversight efforts,” signaling that the author is not a disinterested outside party. Granted, this isn’t a one-to-one comparison—Gelembiuk’s position with the City is a full-time gig, and Turner’s work for Axon is very much not. But in either case, it’s best to make sure that the audience understands their connections to the subject matter, and disclosure can also help to head off the appearance of impropriety.

Why a different standard should apply to an official report that could inform the City’s policies and budget is unclear. But City Attorney Michael Haas tells Tone Madison that “Dr. Turner’s participation on that council does not violate any Citywide purchasing rules or ethics policies.”

Haas went on to explain: “The main conflict that the City usually tries to avoid in its purchasing is a conflict of interest within the selection process itself. For example, if the City hires a consultant to help as a subject matter expert with the writing of a Request for Proposal, that consultant and their organization could not then submit a proposal in response to the RFP itself, and the City would want to make sure that no proposals are coming from organizations that would have directly benefited from the consultant’s involvement with the RFP.” 

Again, it’s true that Turner wouldn’t have a direct role in any eventual purchase of body cameras—that comes down to City staff, the Common Council, and perhaps some City committees along the way. And that really isn’t the issue. The study will no doubt play a role in shaping decisions about whether or not the City embarks upon those purchasing processes in the first place. Chief Barnes makes that very clear in a memo accompanying the report: “In 2025, I will make the acquisition of BWCs a priority for the 2026 budget and will work with City Council and the Mayor’s office to identify funding opportunities for the full deployment of BWCs.”

The City’s Independent Police Monitor, Robin Copley, also doesn’t take issue with Turner’s connection to Axon. 

“I know this is a bit of a boring answer but it doesn’t bother me. The ecosystem of people working adjacent to law enforcement is relatively small,” Copley says. “I myself was previously working for a different department that specifically used Axon’s body cameras and software. Axon is massive and an inevitably familiar face around larger police departments. I have no concerns about Dr. Turner’s ethics or motivations. I think Dr. Turner’s report should be evaluated on the merits of its data and arguments. On that note, there are concerns I have heard about the report itself but I am not yet ready to make a statement and wish to let the incoming new PCOB [Police Civilian Oversight Board] review it themselves.”

Copley did not reply to a follow-up email asking whether she thought the report should have disclosed the connection.

As Copley points out, the study is dealing with a fairly niche area of expertise. Still, social scientists have produced a large body of research about body cameras over the past decade; a meta-analysis published in 2019 surveyed the findings of 70 different studies. 

“Yep, I get paid”

One person who’s not hesitant to talk about Turner’s association with Axon: Turner himself. In discussions with Madison officials, Turner has been forthright about receiving payment from Axon, and has portrayed his work with the company as an effort to make its technology “less racist.” During an April 19, 2022 Common Council meeting—at which alders eventually voted 16-4 to approve MPD’s body camera pilot program—Turner answered questions about his relationship with the company.

In an exchange with then-District 8 Alder Juliana Bennett, Turner downplayed the conflict of interest, saying that “What Axon pays me is a drop in the bucket.” Bennett, who now represents District 2, followed up on this:

Bennett: “Wait, so you get paid by Axon?” 

Turner: “Yep, I get paid, I don’t know, a couple thousand bucks a year to attend seven meetings where they show me their new technology and I tell them how this can impact communities of color negatively, and then I write nasty emails to them to get them to change stuff before they try to roll something out.”

Later in the same meeting, then-District 2 Alder Patrick Heck, pressed Turner further on the subject. Turner’s reply bordered on flippant:

Heck: “You said you were interested in transparency, so I just want to make sure I understand your relationship with Axon and you mentioned that they pay you a relatively small amount a year to be on a type of advisory board. Did they pay for your trip to come to Madison for this opportunity?”

Turner: “No.”

Heck: “And do you receive any funding for your research through them, at your lab or personally?”

Turner: “Personally? Or my lab? My lab, no. Personally, they—I’m not exactly sure what the dollar figure is, again, because this way it divorces me from money when everything goes through my lawyer. So that way I don’t really know. That way you can’t buy me. If you could buy me I’m very expensive.

Heck: “I’m not sure I understood your answer, I’m sorry.”

Turner: “I’m not sure—what didn’t you understand?”

Heck: “If maybe there’s funding that’s not through your lab that might pay for research that you do.”

Turner: “No.”

While these answers suggest that Turner has a more adversarial relationship with Axon, he has also made public statements praising the company. In an April 2024 article in Police Magazine about Axon’s new AI-driven tools for police, Turner praises “Axon’s dedication to refining language tone to mitigate biases, while leveraging technology for good.” 

Turner’s biography on Axon’s site says he researches “how technology impacts vulnerable consumers. In particular his work focuses on video surveillance technology, such as body-worn cameras and CCTV, and how the video available from these sources alters people’s judgments, especially of police-involved episodes.” The results of Turner’s doctoral dissertation show that if the general public watches an incident from the perspective of a body camera, they are less likely to find the officer at fault than if they’d watched the same incident from dash cam or CCTV footage. Turner theorizes that when reviewing body-worn camera footage, the wearer is less prominent because the footage is shot from their perspective, and therefore an observer is less likely to ascribe fault for the incident to the wearer. 

“[T]his research suggests that viewing body cam footage might make judgments by jurors and as well by the general public more lenient toward the body cam wearer (usually a police officer) than might otherwise be warranted,” Turner wrote. “[One of the experiments in the study] indicates that body cam video might in some cases reduce the likelihood that grand juries will indict a police officer, compared with dash cam video or a written report of the incident.”