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Montreal Union Wants a Camera On Every Policeman's Uniform
An anonymous reader writes "The Montreal Policemen's Brotherhood is proposing that officers be equipped with uniform-mounted cameras that can be used to record various interactions. The union says in other jurisdictions where police officers are equipped with point-of-view cameras, the use of force by officers and assaults on officers drops by as much as 60%. One system is currently being tested in Edmonton, Alberta."
That camera must be one powerful weapon if it has caused such a great reduction in "assaults on officers." I don't suppose it could be that they were making shit up, and now find it more difficult to do so with video evidence? Could this be extrapolated to suggest that a majority of "resisting arrest" charges are entirely bogus?
As long as there are penalties for 'losing' key footage. Whether by the officer or higher in the chain of command. Otherwise it becomes a selective evidence tool that is easily biased.
Silence is a state of mime.
Spent the night in jail, and the next day in court answering charges including disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and assault on a police officer.
Something very similar happened to me. The cop even charged me with assault on a police officer with a deadly weapon. A much more serious charge. A felony which could have resulted in many years in prison. Because beating me nearly to death just wasn't sufficient apparently. That deadly weapon charge mysteriously vanished when I appeared in court.
The judge looks at her, then looks at the cop, who's a burly nearly-6-foot-tall dude, then looks at the charges and says "Seriously? SHE resisted arrest and assaulted YOU? You've got to be kidding me. Dismissed."
Unfortunately, being male, I didn't get any such leniency from the judge and now I have "assault and battery on a police officer" on my record. In addition to every other contempt of cop charge the asshole could think of. I wasn't found guilty. I pleaded something similar to "no contest" because the plea bargain offer had no jail time. Just probation and a small fine. I paid thousands in legal fees and have lingering memory problems as a result of the beating I received.
Since my contact with the police was due to a roadblock, I plan to either move to one of the few states where such things are illegal or leave the country entirely for a place where the police are not so violent and dangerous.
If only the cop who beat me had been forced to wear a camera which was required to be on for any of the common contempt of cop charges to be allowed I would have been saved at least from the false charges. I would probably still have been severely injured or even killed but that would have been the end of it.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
The reason behind the embedded cameras on policemen has nothing to do with a better control of their work. It has to do with the fact that in the past months, many embarrassing videos by people using their mobile device to record the scene where released and these videos are not always telling the whole story. So, the policemen themselves prefer to wear and record the scene they are involved in, in case such a video is released they will be able to tell the whole story to the public. Of course, if it is found the policeman himself is not having a proper conduct, it will also be easier to management to assess it and act accordingly. But the main goal is to protect policemen against street videos recorded with mobile device that do not tell the whole story about a particular event.
Achille Talon
Hop!
I'm ok with the idea of putting cameras on cops as long as citizens can record cops too, or like in britain if people can get copies of the footage. then it is a good thing.
I'm all for the video cameras on the police, provide the camera is "sealed" from tampering and the police are compelled to produce the video evidence else the prosecution fails and the courts charges the police for contempt.
Look at the history of dash cams. They always 'fail' or tapes are lost when the footage is bad for the cops.
Until the track record changes it is safe to assume the video will never show the cops applying some 'stick time'. Cops will simply have their hats fall off/shirt pocket flap fall over the camera etc.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The major difference here is police officers wear a uniform, and as such their behavior is perceived to representative of everyone wearing that same uniform.
The same way you trust a person in a nurses uniform to tend to your wounds, or injuries, you should be able to trust a person in a police officers uniform to uphold the law. Unfortunately, when the 'decent' police turn a blind eye to the bad apples activities, the uniform as a whole suffers for it, and public trust goes down.
Yes, I did notice it. I'm not sure if you are familiar with police practices, but "assault on an officer" is often used as a blanket crime by police to arrest people in any situation where the police use force, especially if they use improper or excessive force. It is completely logical to me that both would drop by 60% because very often they are the same thing.
That is, often a police officer will aggress against a person for whatever reason and then later claim that the person they aggressed against was the agressor. It basically allows an officer to arrest or even beat anyone up for anything and is a much more common tactic than you think. When the citizen gets to court, do you think a judge or jury will believe the police officer or the citizen?
We hear a lot about the minority of cases where a bystander taped the scene and the police did something wrong, but you don't hear about the majority where nobody was there to video tape it.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
...the anglos were in the street claiming their love and begging for them to stay a part of Canada...
... the anglos were in the street calling bullshit for segmenting Canada in half and having a secondary country extort them for transporting goods east/west.