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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."
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.
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.
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
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.
A body camera is a tiny, tiny fraction of the salary of a cop, and will probably make up its cost very quickly in the bullshit that it cuts out.
You're wrong, AC, ("of course"). Apparently you don't actually know many republicans. Of the several I know, many are LEOs and would fully support this for exactly for the reasons stated in the article. If they lump their purchase under "anti-terrorism", then funding is no problem, as that still seems to be a bottomless wallet, for both wings.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
it's only a bad idea if the police have control over the recordings ... then you would see incriminating footage getting lost or deleted (and blamed on "equipment failure" ) & only exculpatory (for the police) footage being preserved.
I'm all for it (despite the expansion of the panopticon) if the cameras are always on (including an officer recall if the feed fails), the feed is streamed to a remote location, the record is administered by a public advocacy agency and available for public review, and all interactions of a routine nature are deleted after a fixed period of time.
Think about it: Where is the money going to come for all these cameras?
Federal/state/local governments aren't exactly flush with cash right now so either taxes will need to be increased to purchase said cameras or something will have to be cut (and that opens up a whole other can of worms.)
Or the departments could just take the funding they put aside for a couple surplus MRAPs and buy these cameras instead. These cameras have the added effect of actually improving officer/civilian safety (less chance of violence on both sides if they know a camera is recording) with the only downside being the cops don't have bad-ass trucks they can ride around in while pretending they're Marines riding through downtown Fallujah.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
If you get rid of the TSA, there would be tons of money available for such an endeavor.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Where is the money going to come for all these cameras?
The cost of the cameras is insignificant compared to the cost of the lawsuits, and riots, that occur in their absence. They also cut down on paperwork, because the video itself is a record of the interaction, so the cop can spend less time writing reports and more time policing. They also save lots of money by reducing arrests, since cameras have a calming influence on both cops and the perps. People behave better when they know they are being filmed.
Federal/state/local governments aren't exactly flush with cash right now ...
Yet they can afford armored vehicles and military weapons.
The camera itself might be a tiny, tiny fraction of the salary of a cop, but it would still require a massive database and supporting infrastructure to run/maintain the entire implementation. Nor would it change the fact that people would still bring (founded and unfounded) lawsuits against the police.
What if the police got to the scene of a crime after the victim (a black man) managed to turn the tables on the attacker (a white woman) and the only thing the camera saw was the victim (a black man) attacking the attacker (a white woman) in a panicked frenzy? Camera and the police says the victim (a black man) is the attacker, therefore the victim (a black man) gets arrested. Investigation? Why conduct one when the police (partly) caught a black man beating a white woman on camera?
And yes, I am picking an extreme example, but thats exactly how we got here in the first place. White cop shoots black kid. White cop goes free, black kid is (supposedly) framed as a thief. Oh, but we'll have to wait MONTHS for the FEDERAL investigation to be completed because the LOCAL POLICE fucked up so badly there was RIOTING in the streets for over a week. But body cameras will solve all that, right?
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.
Just because it won't solve 100% of the problems doesn't mean it shouldn't be applied as one of multiple solutions.
As for your "recorded half-way through" comment, it would be clear that the video didn't start at the beginning and that the cops arrived late at the scene. If a jury can't understand that, you're fucked anyway.
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You don't know very many republicans, I suspect. I'm one, and I'm all for this.
What I am opposed to, for the moment, would be:
- Federal compulsory regulation requiring this. Local governments (and state governments as well) have the responsibility and so can make the decisions themselves. Claims that federal civil rights law would compel this are specious. Federal intrusion here leads only to more federal control, and I'm still enough of a Conservative to oppose this.
- Federal funding, which would be the vehicle for regulation. Federal funding is the hammer to drive control. Just say no. Those dollars came from somewhere, you know.
Police departments and communities that have problems with their police already know this, and should be acting. Citizens need to elect officials that ensure that problems are solved.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
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.
What if the police got to the scene of a crime after the victim (a black man) managed to turn the tables on the attacker (a white woman) and the only thing the camera saw was the victim (a black man) attacking the attacker (a white woman) in a panicked frenzy? Camera and the police says the victim (a black man) is the attacker, therefore the victim (a black man) gets arrested. Investigation? Why conduct one when the police (partly) caught a black man beating a white woman on camera?
How is this any different from the current situation? Currently, said officer will simply testify in court, "I arrived at the scene and the only thing I saw was a black man attacking a white woman in a panicked frenzy."
At least, with the camera solution, we can be 100% sure that the officer isn't telling a flat-out lie when they say something like that in court.
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.
Nor would it change the fact that people would still bring (founded and unfounded) lawsuits against the police.
This is flat out wrong. All the evidence to date shows that cop-cams result in a dramatic reduction in complaints, for two reasons:
1. Since there is a recording, there are far fewer false allegations
2. Since they are being recorded, the cops behave better, so there are fewer incidents that result in valid allegations.
Here is a typical result:
THE Rialto study began in February 2012 and will run until this July. The results from the first 12 months are striking. Even with only half of the 54 uniformed patrol officers wearing cameras at any given time, the department over all had an 88 percent decline in the number of complaints filed against officers, compared with the 12 months before the study, to 3 from 24.
But body cameras will solve all that, right?
In the case of Michael Brown, YES, a camera likely would have prevented the riots. The riots didn't occur because a white cop killed a black kid, but because there was a perception that it was unjustified and the cop "got away with it". If there was a camera, there would be much less dispute about what happened. The camera would either show that the shooting was justified, or it would show that it was not and the cop would be charged with murder. In either case, I don't think there would be a riot.
I think it was Montana that once tried to refuse the federal money over the speed limit (not many here have driven a Montana highway at 55).
Arizona tried to ignore 55 and not enforce it in certain areas where they thought higher speeds were appropriate and safe. The feds got annoyed and tried to cut highway funding for Arizona. So Arizona started enforcing the 55 mph speed limit. A friend got pulled over and received a ticket, not for speeding -- a moving violation that would put points on his drivers license and raise his insurance rate, but for "improper use of finite resources" -- an infractions that did not show up on one's driving record. In other words he received a ticket for "wasting gas" not speeding.
As a Republican, I 100% agree with the idea and want it to happen.
I also want codified in that same law that all citizens are able to video officers for any reason at any time if they can do so from pubic property or private property they are allowed to do so, and are not physically hampering what is going on.
Any attempt to keep the public from recording or interfering with that recording is de facto proof of violating the civil rights of the photographer and the person that the officers are engaging.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
it will put the case back into a he said/she said context, against the word of a cop... pretty much what we have now
No. It is not at all what we have now. Without a camera, it is my word against the cop. With a camera, it is my word against a cop that is claiming he "lost" critical exculpatory evidence. That is a huge difference, because in the second case the cop will have far less credibility. I have served on juries several times, although only once where the credibility of the cop was an issue. The jurors did NOT just assume he was telling the truth. Instead, we discussed his possible motivations for lying and distorting the evidence. In the end, we chose to believe him, because we didn't see any reason for him to lie, and his testimony was corroborated by other evidence. Juries tend to be made up of minorities, and economically disadvantaged people, that don't have the motivation or ability to weasel out of it. These are the people least likely to believe cops. If the cop says the camera malfunctioned, the defendant is going to walk.
If a police officer witnesses another police officer committing a crime they would arrest a normal citizen for but lets it pass, that police officer is a corrupt police officer. Period.
Do you Gentoo!?
The riots were nothing more than a means to an end (ie, a bunch of thugs getting free stuff).
There were lots of peaceful protesters and far fewer rioters. The police were distracted, and rioters used the protests as cover. If there had been no protests, there would have been no riot. If there was a clear record of what happened, there would have been no protest. For instance, this shooting looks unjustified to me, and the police lied about what happened, saying the perp came toward them with a raised knife, and they only fired when he was 2-3 feet away. None of that was true. But there was no protest or riot.
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.
The shooting in Ferguson was used as an excuse to riot.
Look at the story, every 'witness' says he was shot in the back running away ... until the autopsy shows that NONE of the wounds were in his back. From the start every witness account was bullshit.
No. "Every" witness didn't say that. Lawyers who regularly investigate situations like this say that when you have a lot of witnesses, you get different accounts. When every witness gives the same story, they assume that the witnesses got together and made up a story together -- which cops often do.
Ferguson was a town in which most of the population was black, the cops were white, the district attorney was white, and most of the politicians were white. One of the main sources of income for the town was stopping black motorists and giving them traffic tickets.
There were many incidents of brutality by white cops against black people, and this was only the last straw. Most of the demonstrators were peaceful.
And oh yeah. The residents made a memorial for Michael Brown, his mother laid flowers on the spot that he was killed -- and one of the cops brought a police dog to urinate on it.
http://www.motherjones.com/pol...
Michael Brown's Mom Laid Flowers Where He Was Shot—and Police Crushed Them
As darkness fell on Canfield Drive on August 9, a makeshift memorial sprang up in the middle of the street where Michael Brown's body had been sprawled in plain view for more than four hours. Flowers and candles were scattered over the bloodstains on the pavement. Someone had affixed a stuffed animal to a streetlight pole a few yards away. Neighborhood residents and others were gathering, many of them upset and angry.
Soon, police vehicles reappeared, including from the St. Louis County Police Department, which had taken control of the investigation. Several officers emerged with dogs. What happened next, according to several sources, was emblematic of what has inflamed the city of Ferguson, Missouri, ever since the unarmed 18-year-old was gunned down: An officer on the street let the dog he was controlling urinate on the memorial site.
Suppose some cop brought his police dog to piss on your mother's grave. Would you get mad?
The reason they have race riots, all over this country, is that people go through the whole process of polite complaints and peaceful demonstrations, and get nowhere. They're routinely getting killed and the cops routinely get away with it. And then the cops stop them in the street and humiliate them, like they did here when they knew they were the center of attention with cameras around. What do you suppose they're doing when there aren't any reporters around?
They riot because they found out that riots are the only thing that works. When they burn down the town, the white establishment finally pays attention.
I doubt that you would pay attention otherwise.