I think a middle ground approach would be to defacto give access to the footage to the defendants in the case but not the general public.

That’s pretty much what I’m talking about, but not just defendants, but also plaintiffs and complainants. Cops and prosecutors can claim the video is evidence of a crime, and subpoena it for evidence. A citizen can claim the video is evidence of the cop’s wrongdoing, and subpoena it for evidence. Bodycam videos should not be subject to FOIA requests. They should only be available by court order.

The metadata - date, time, location - should be public record. Everyone should know if a video was recorded, so we can verify officers are actually making the records they are supposed to be making, and aren’t deleting them after the fact.