Opinion: South Bend’s Police Chief Scott Ruszkowski Wants to Be Sheriff - And Wants to Limit Your Access to Body Camera Footage

Logan Foster
Jul 25
5 min read

Opinion: South Bend’s Police Chief Scott Ruszkowski Wants to Be Sheriff - And Wants to Limit Your Access to Body Camera Footage By Logan Foster - July 24th, 2025

On July 28, 2025, the South Bend Common Council will vote on Ordinance 43-25, a proposal that would impose steep fees, up to $150 per video, for public access to police body camera footage. This ordinance’s timing is conspicuous, given that Scott Ruszkowski, South Bend's Chief of Police since 2015, is widely expected to run for St. Joseph County Sheriff in 2026. Adding to the speculation, Ruszkowski has already created a campaign website and set up the "Rusz4SJC Exploratory Committee." Pictured in April of 2025, you will even find a T-Shirt branded with "Rusz4SJC."

Could this ordinance serve as more than an update to the South Bend Police Department's (SBPD) fee schedule? Could it, in fact, be a calculated attempt to shield Scott Ruszkowski’s record from further scrutiny before his official bid for sheriff?

SJC Democrats on Dyngus Day, Wearing a RUSZ4SJC Tshirt

A Timeline that Demands Scrutiny

To fully appreciate what’s happening, it’s essential to outline the timeline of this policy. Back in 2016, Indiana lawmakers passed House Enrolled Act (HEA) 1019, empowering municipalities to charge fees (if they so choose) for body camera footage, to a maximum of $150 per recording. The intent was to ensure that cities could recover costs of redacting sensitive information from videos while maintaining public access to police records.

The South Bend Police Department began using body cameras in 2018, two years after HEA 1019 passed. These taxpayer-funded body cameras were touted as instruments of public accountability, promising to shed light on interactions between law enforcement officers and residents. Yet, despite the state law allowing South Bend to charge fees and South Bend opting to use body cameras, South Bend refrained from imposing these charges for the entirety of their body camera program. As of 2025, the only charge associated with receiving body camera footage is $9.00, the cost of the “DVD.”

Now, in 2025, seven years after the cameras were first implemented and nine years after HEA 1019 was enacted, the City of South Bend is suddenly seeking to levy significant fees for the public to obtain body camera footage. Why? And why, specifically, in a year when South Bend's Police Chief Scott Ruszkowski is positioning himself as the Democratic frontrunner to replace Bill Redman, St. Joseph County's current Democratic Sheriff.

Body Cameras and Accountability—Until Now

South Bend’s experience with body cameras has been far from smooth. The most notorious example is the 2019 killing of Eric Logan, an unarmed Black man shot by a South Bend police officer who failed to activate his body camera. That tragedy, which drew national attention, raised significant questions about the department’s procedures under Scott Ruszkowski’s leadership.

The fallout didn’t stop there. Reports over the years revealed that South Bend police officers frequently failed to file accurate accounts of incidents, violating departmental policies such as SBPD Policy 323. Despite these lapses, the Internal Affairs division, overseen by Ruszkowski, cleared officers of wrongdoing even when the evidence and body camera footage proved them to be in violation of their own departmental policies.

Budgets Balloon, Transparency Dwindles

The City of South Bend and Police Chief Scott Ruszkowski argue that Ordinance 43-25 is necessary to offset the labor-intensive process of redacting video footage. This claim may have carried weight if they implemented the policy immediately after starting their body camera program like the St. Joseph County Police Department in 2021, but a quick look at the City of South Bend and the SBPD’s budgets tells a different story.

Since the body camera program began in 2018, the South Bend Police Department’s budget has soared by nearly 92%, from $28.8 million in 2018 to a proposed $55.1 million for 2025. The city’s overall budget, meanwhile, has jumped from $359 million in 2017 to $424 million in 2025. With such significant increases, it is naive to suggest that the city can’t allocate resources to fund body camera editing and storage, especially when countless other (and smaller) municipalities manage to provide body camera footage at little to no cost to the public.

Instead, this ordinance appears to shift the financial burden back onto the public, the very taxpayers who funded the cameras in the first place. Had preserving public access been a true priority, the city could put forward a bill to hire a full-time-employee to manage video requests. Even at $50 per hour, a generous estimate for the required work, a single full-time employee would cost $100,000 annually, a drop in the bucket compared to the department’s nearly $26 million budget INCREASE over the past seven years.

The Political Implications Are Hard to Ignore

If Ordinance 43-25 passes, it would go into effect on January 1, 2026, aligning perfectly with the opening of an election year in which Ruszkowski is expected to run for sheriff. The timing is damning. For a candidate who will face questions about his leadership, especially in light of past scandals and the public’s eroding trust in the police department, restricting access to body camera footage serves as a convenient political shield.

Whether it’s a journalist investigating misconduct, an activist documenting systemic issues, or a resident seeking justice, the ordinance tips the scales in favor of those who benefit from opacity. And in this case, that includes Ruszkowski himself. The South Bend Common Council has a duty to reject this ordinance outright. At the very least, the proposal should be amended to remove fees for body camera footage, ensuring that transparency remains a priority, not a privilege.

View Ordinance 43-25 Here: