Cameras for Cops

[BobR]

We recently started a test of some police officers in Spokane wearing a body camera. So far not much of anything, other than the cop that shot a guy one night. The cop was one of the "test" wearers of the camera, too bad he didn't turn it on when he was in hot pursuit, doing a PIT maneuver, or when he exited his cop mobile and "had" to shoot the guy because he was going to run over the cop. 

bob

[MechAg94]

I'm wondering if simply making it illegal for the gov reps to alter footage or else having secure, limited access storage facilities for their footage wouldn't solve most of the problem. While the media should be held to a higher standard regarding "creative" editing, I think it would be difficult to force that on private individuals. Having the raw footage available to "compare and contrast" would alleviate creative edits, such as occurred in the OP. Certainly the libel/slander option is viable for especially egregious edits. In a civilized society, public shaming would solve the problem, however our society is becoming more and more shameless.

My problem is I think media and 3rd parties should be held accoutable for edited footage.  I was thinking Zimmerman or someone else in a similar situation tried to sue, but it ended up getting kicked out.  I don't remember the details.  I think it was NBC that edited the 911 call and they should have been made to pay.  I guess that only works if someone like GM is sueing. 

[MechAg94]

A former soldier of mine was recently hired as the Chief of Police for a town here in Illinois.  He was telling me about the cameras that's he's buying for his department.  Body mount with a button on the side of it.  It's in "passive record" mode until the officer hits the button.  Then it begins recording and also goes back and uploads the previous 2 minutes of "passive recording" to the computer at the station (the camera is link via the patrol car).

So the officer can go take a dump and know that two minutes after he's done wiping, all that is "recorded over".  However, when he out interacting with Joe Public, the two minutes prior to him hitting the button will included in part of the recording that he's making.   IIRC I think he said something where the camera automatically begins "active" recording once the siren and/or lights are turned on.

So drive around on patrol, when you interact with Joe Public either hit the siren/lights or if you get out of the car and push the button on the side of the camera and everything is uploaded to the Dept computer. 

Sounds like a workable idea. 

Would there be any penalty for taking off the camera or disabling it?

[Battle Monkey of Zardoz]

We recently started a test of some police officers in Spokane wearing a body camera. So far not much of anything, other than the cop that shot a guy one night. The cop was one of the "test" wearers of the camera, too bad he didn't turn it on when he was in hot pursuit, doing a PIT maneuver, or when he exited his cop mobile and "had" to shoot the guy because he was going to run over the cop. 

bob

Hence the problem.  Cops do not want to wear cameras. It would make them more accountable.

[Ben]

My problem is I think media and 3rd parties should be held accoutable for edited footage.  I was thinking Zimmerman or someone else in a similar situation tried to sue, but it ended up getting kicked out.  I don't remember the details.  I think it was NBC that edited the 911 call and they should have been made to pay.  I guess that only works if someone like GM is sueing. 

Don't get me wrong, I believe the media should be held to a higher standard and be absolutely legally accountable for editing footage to change or hide the truth. I'm just thinking it would be more difficult to hold Joe Schmo facebooker accountable for edited content vs the media, hence the need for secure raw footage of cop cameras that is easily accessible (i.e., not just accessible only if it exonerates the LEO or doesn't otherwise potentially harm a department). It has to be attainable via some unbiased source. If police want to use them for their protection, they also have to use them to "air the dirty laundry" as it were.

[Scout26]

Sounds like a workable idea. 

Would there be any penalty for taking off the camera or disabling it?

Yes, His Department policy is termination.   He get to write the policy. 

These are the cameras he's looking at getting:

http://www.wolfcomusa.com/default.html

[Firethorn]

The problem is that the cops know how to delete recordings. <snip>

Fortunately for him, his tablet was synched to some cloud service and he was able to restore the recording.

Well, obviously they don't know how to delete recordings that well. 

While I know there's a snowball's chance in hell of the officer(s) in question facing destruction of evidence charges for doing that, I think they should.  Oh, it 'wasn't me'?  Conspiracy charges.

BTW, here's a study:  60% reduction in use of force by police officers, 88% reduction in complaints.  It's not broken down whether to say that officers are behaving themselves better, or people aren't bothering to make false complaints that would be easily disproven by the cameras, or the people themselves are acting better when they know they're on camera, but it's probably a mix of 'all of the above'.

It also makes investigation into a police shooting a lot faster and easier. 

These are the reasons I support the cameras.