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U.S. Senator: All Cops Should Wear Cameras
Several readers sent word that U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) has begun speaking in favor of mandatory cameras for police across the country. "Everywhere I go people now have cameras. And police officers are now at a disadvantage, because someone can tape the last part of an encounter and not tape the first part of the encounter. And it gives the impression that the police officer has overreacted when they haven't." This follows the recent controversy ove the shooting death of Michael Brown in a police incident, as well as a White House petition on the subject that rocketed to 100,000 signatures.
McCaskill continued, "I would like to see us say, 'If you want federal funding in your community, you've got to have body cams on your officers. And I think that would go a long way towards solving some of these problems, and it would be a great legacy over this tragedy that's occurred in Ferguson, regardless of what the facts say at the end as to whether or not anyone is criminally culpable."
McCaskill continued, "I would like to see us say, 'If you want federal funding in your community, you've got to have body cams on your officers. And I think that would go a long way towards solving some of these problems, and it would be a great legacy over this tragedy that's occurred in Ferguson, regardless of what the facts say at the end as to whether or not anyone is criminally culpable."
Of course, somebody will think this a bad idea...
Or will we one day hear, that, unfortunately, the cameras worn by the officers involved had "malfunctioned" at the most inopportune moment?
(Pay no attention to the remains of chewing gum around the lenses.)
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Fewer complaints against the cops, complaints get resolved quickly and fairly, fewer cases of cops using violence, they caught one copkiller because the cop he killed had filmed his face.
It's been good for just about everyone, yet some cops keep resisting. I guess because they no longer get their 3 months paid vacation while complaints get kicked around by the unionistas before being summarily dismissed, replacing that with a day off while the tape is reviewed is a hard sell.
Make evidence retrieved without camera coverage inadmissible, citations issued without camera coverage inadmissible, and so on.
and states are completely free to fund their own law enforcement needs without asking the fed for money
They are also less likely to charge you with a bullshit charge they "discovered" having stopped you on sketchy grounds in the first place.
The US has a strong tradition of prosecutorial discretion. DAs decline to charge people all the time, in court, with a written record. Cameras wouldn't necessarily require the death of leniency, although I see your point that they might encourage it if cops decide to be stricter that as a form of protest. But who knows, that just might encourage people to repeal stupid laws *cough*non-violent possession*cough*.
Police are given wide discretion by the courts. There is no reason to believe that anyone will be auditing them for failure to write up a citation.
This is more to prevent them from beating the ever-loving-crap out of a black guy for driving in the wrong neighborhood. *Ahem* Sorry: "resisting arrest".
It's a good idea, don't get me wrong. It's about time we used this ubiquitous cheap technology in an obviously beneficial way. It's a good move, and one I support.
But either after this comes about, or as part of the deal, the content of that camera needs to be stored offsite and specifically out of the reach of the police officer. Otherwise we're going to see a lot of data simply go missing at convenient times. To be frank, we can't trust police departments to hold onto evidence that could incriminate themselves.
And any evidence that an officer tampered with their camera in an effort to suppress incriminating evidence should be dealt with exactly as if they had destroyed evidence. Because that's what it is.
Though I don't think, this particular one is a bad idea, I am worried about the yet another illustration of how the Federal government's control reaches into the crooks and nannies it was never supposed to reach:
By ratcheting up the Federal taxes, the Federal government has come into position to dictate the terms to local governments, who can neither print money nor raise their taxes to finance themselves without bankrupting local economies. But don't you worry — it is not dictatorship, you can always refuse the federal monies, can you not?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Albuquerque has had problems recently with police shooting a homeless man and their lapel cameras show something that appears to be a real unjustified use of force.
Now that there is loads of bad press from the released videos, the last couple of "incidents" have been plagued with ummm... Camera Malfunctions! That's it. The cameras just malfunctioned and didn't work. We just don't understand it. Sorry, but we don't have any video of that last shooting...
A really good idea, but the devil is in the details.
That may, actually, be a good thing — enforcing police objectivity by ending the selective enforcement (sometimes affectionately referred to as "Prosecutorial Discretion").
Then, if a silly law affects too many people — including judges, mayors, and good-looking women, who would've all gotten off with a warning before — the law may get amended...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Cops can already wear a camera and can already run facial recognition. You seem to be confusing the absence of this law as being equivalent to a prohibition of activities you do not like. It is not, and your logic is fallacious.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
The problem with this is that if all cops feel like they're being audited all of the time, they're less likely to let you off the hook for a minor violation. Then since they have to charge you with something, and there's supporting evidence, you're not going to get a plea or reduction from a mandatory sentence in court.
I know that doesn't sound like a big deal but cops let thousands of people off per day on minor things where people just need a warning.
Frankly, I'm a little less concerned with the "problem" of cops letting off people who do commit minor infractions, than the problem of cops falsifying evidence or destroying exculpatory evidence, beating or torturing suspects, and lying on police reports in order to arrest people who haven't committed any crime. You getting out of a speeding ticket for going 60 in a 55 is less important than Joe Innocent getting arrested for walking in the wrong part of town while black, having a gun with defaced serial numbers planted on him, and suddenly facing 10 year felony charge with an "option" to plead guilty and only get a year (and a felony record).
"And police officers are now at a disadvantage, because someone can tape the last part of an encounter and not tape the first part of the encounter. And it gives the impression that the police officer has overreacted when they haven't."
Or maybe they have, because they have the legal authority to use force and the citizenry they are sworn to protect and serve do not.
I find it a very disturbing trend that "ordinary citizens" are now viewed as dangerous and "the enemy" from which the noble police (and other official institutions) must be protected. When I grew up, the general tone was that of Blackstone's Formulation ("It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer"). Now it seems to be "It's better that ten innocent persons suffer than that one guilty person escape".
How is this any different than dash cams on police cars? Police regularly give out warnings while being filmed without any repercussions.
In theory it is the same concept, but in practice it is very different.
1. Dash cams are fixed and (usually) only see what is happening in front of the police car, which is normally on a public right-of-way and therefore where the public could also observe and record*. What happens elsewhere, like when an officer goes inside a private residence, isn't captured by dash cams. A body cam on the other hand would frequently be recording events that are not occurring where the public can see, and this is a significant difference for accountability. It should see what is happening in front of the officer (note, NOT necessarily what the officer is seeing since the officer could be looking to the side) which is where any action of interest is most likely to be.
2. Dash cams use a system located in the car, typically the trunk, and can hold a large amount of high-quality video. Body cams will have stricter limits due to size and weight so may be much more limited on what they can capture.
3. Dash cams are located inside the protected shell of the police car and, short of a crash, should not have frequent failures. Body cams on the other hand will be operating in a much more hostile environment (officer's opinion aside), being exposed to weather, physical trauma, getting material thrown on or over the lens, etc.
We already have a problem of a high "failure" rate for dash cams, and I expect the same issue with body cams. Some here are advocating punishments to officers when a camera stops working, either directly or in how evidence is treated, but this would punish innocent officers whose cameras legitimately fail, since after all, they are operating in truly hostile environments. An officer whose camera seems to consistently fail, or where the officer seems to frequently "forget" to turn it on, are a different matter. We need a way of telling legit from illegit failures so we don't punish the innocent officers in our rush to punish guilty ones.
* I don't know the current status of a couple states that have tried to make recording of officers in public a crime.
I'll be happier when I see cameras on the politicians. It'd be interesting to know what they agree to do in private lunch meetings with corporate CEOs and billionaire bankers. Criminally interesting, I suspect.
I dunno, to me it looks like tactical language so as to not aggravate the police force & automatically put them on the defensive. If you want someone to comply, you give them a reason to *want* to do it.
If you tell people you want to restrict their freedoms so you have more control over them, they'll rebel. If you tell people that you're trying to protect them (think of the children!), they'll hand you their liberties without a second thought.
If someone complains about an interaction with an officer where the officer's camera has no record of the interaction, the officer is assumed to be guilty.
That should give officers incentive to ensure their cameras are in working order.
+1 to the parent. Selective enforcement blows.
The saying goes: "If everyone is guilty of something, they can punish anyone for anything."
Don't like someone's youtube channel? Find a video which has a poster of Tinkerbell in the background and get Disney to DMCA
Don't like someone's racial background or religion, wait until they fail to stop 10 feet behind an intersection and give them a ticket. Search their car while you are at it
I commit thousands of crimes a year, and so do you. That isn't a problem with me or you, or even law enforcement. The letter of the law is so screwed up that there is no possible way to root out corruption and discrimination.
Was Michael Brown surrendering with his hands up when he was shot, or was he attacking the police officer? Body cam video would have gone a long way to answering that question.
When investigating complex matters like police shootings, more evidence is better. There is no way you can convince me that less data would make the investigation better.
The camera video doesn't mean a constant audit. If a cop pulls you over for speeding and lets you go with a warning, his supervisor isn't going to be viewing that recording. If the cop pulls you over for speeding, drags you out of the car, beats you, and then claims that you pulled a gun on him, the supervisor (and possibly jury too) will view the recording and be able to tell whether the officer was correct in his actions.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
That's... not really the same. Average people should not be under surveillance at all times. Cops are different. They're special; they're tasked with upholding the law and keeping the peace. They have more power than an average person, so they need to be under more scrutiny than the average person.
Not only should cops and squad cars be mandated to have extensive cams working at all times we need exactly the same thing in our jails and prisons. Abuse by guards as well as inmates should be made impossible. And we need voice as well as video. No cop should ever be able to blackmail an inmate or make deals with inmates under any conditions. And inmates should find it vastly difficult to conspire with other inmates. The days when a guard could force a prisoner to have sex or sell drugs within the prison or be rewarded for being an enforcer for the guards needs to come to a total end. Secrets are evil in and of themselves and secrets perpetuate crime as well. To enable the Truth to set us free we need to turn on very bright search lights.