Bodycam of officer who shot, killed man outside Friends Hospital was not activated

Tonya Kersey was at a medical appointment on the afternoon of March 20, 2025, when a neighbor called her to say that her son, Aaron Rainey, was walking in between traffic naked with his pants around his ankles.

She asked her neighbor to help him. 

“She went down there and got a blanket and told him to cover himself up and fix his clothes and stuff,” Kersey said.

By then, police had already been called. 

According to police, the 32-year-old man agreed to be taken to Friends Hospital for a mental health evaluation. Surveillance video from a nearby business shows police helping Rainey into the back of a police van. He didn’t have handcuffs on. 

Officers were wearing body-worn cameras.  But it's unclear if they were recording at that time. 

Thirty minutes later, Rainey was shot to death in the parking lot of Friends Hospital. 

“How could you do this? An innocent child and now they're trying to make him out to be a suspect,” Kersey said. 

The NBC10 Investigators confirmed with police that while one officer activated his body-worn camera during a struggle at Friends Hospital, the officer who shot Rainey did not. It’s unclear given the city’s current policy on body-worn cameras, if the officers would have had to turn on their cameras at any point leading up to the struggle, and during the struggle itself. One legal expert we spoke with called the policy ineffective.

According to police, as the officers helped Rainey out of the van at Friend’s Hospital, he became combative, knocking down one of the officers. 

Police say the officer's partner tased Rainey but that didn't stop him. He got a hold of the first officer's gun. That's when the partner shot Rainey.  Police say Rainey shot back.

“We know there was an exchange of gunfire between the two individuals,” Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said, following the shooting. 

The officer whose gun was taken was shot in his bullet proof vest – but police later said it was friendly fire from his partner.

Kersey didn't know at the time that the officer who shot her son never activated his body-worn camera.

“I didn't know that until you told me,” she said.  

She said police allowed her to review video of the incident - recorded from a hospital surveillance camera.

“Him on the ground and they shooting and told me that the other part was too graphic,” she said.

We requested to see the video from Friend’s Hospital, as well as the police body camera video, but requests were declined. Kersey says she has an appointment to see the available body-camera footage next week. 

Citing an on-going investigation, PPD also declined our request for an interview to discuss the department’s body-worn camera policy and if, and when, the officers should have turned on their cameras.

That includes whether the officers had their body-worn cameras on when they first encountered Rainey on Torresdale Avenue.

“Things that distinguish the Philadelphia Police Department's policy, there is a lot of discretion on when to activate it,” said Anjelica Hendricks, a criminal law professor at the University of Pennsylvania's law school. 

Hendricks served on a previous Philadelphia police advisory commission and is familiar with the city’s body-worn camera program.

Philly’s body-worn camera policy states that cameras “be activated prior to responding to all calls for service, during all law enforcement related encounters and during all activities involving the general public.”

The policy then lists 12 examples of when a body camera should be turned on — such as when conducting any vehicle or pedestrian investigation, and when handling a disturbance or crisis related event. 

It also lists 11 examples when the cameras should not be on, including when private areas of the human body are exposed and there exists no legitimate law enforcement need to capture such images, and when entering a private patient area in a hospital.

“The more exceptions that you have, and there are a ton of exceptions within that policy, the less transparency that we're gonna get,” Hendricks said. 

Nick Kato is the head of investigations for the Citizens Police Oversight Commission (CPOC). It’s a group charged with overseeing the actions of Philly Police and providing recommendations to city leaders— including in this case.

“Body-worn camera footage, surveillance, the whole sort of array of evidence that you might see at a scene is made available to us to review,” Kato said. 

But he would not share what he viewed— or whether the officers violated policy. 

“Whether or not that policy was followed would require a misconduct investigation to take place,” he said. 

CPOC does not have the authority to conduct such an investigation. That currently falls to PPD internal affairs. 

What CPOC can do, Kato said, is provide recommendations during the department’s Use of Force Review Board meetings.

“Our executive director is a voting member on that board. So when that board convenes to hear those cases, we take the information that we have and brief her so she has an informed position on the board for those hearings,” he said.

Those meetings are not open to the public.

“That is a frustrating outcome from the way that the rules and regulations of the department don't allow us to release certain information. Because I wholeheartedly agree, having more details about a police shooting early on from civilians would certainly add to that transparency,” he said. “But we are very mindful of the constraints that are placed upon us by the department's rules and some state laws regarding privacy.”

Rainey’s mom said she is scheduled to view next week the body-worn camera video that is available from the one officer who activated it.

But, still, she is worried that without body-worn camera video of the entire time Rainey was with police, the investigation may not be complete.

“I will never know the truth,” she said.