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NYPD Starts Body Camera Pilot Program
An anonymous reader writes: In the wake of the Michael Brown shooting, calls for continuous recording of all police activity have become loud and strenuous. Now, one of the biggest police forces in the world will begin testing body cameras. The New York Police Department announced a pilot program to test the wearable cameras in high-crime districts. "[T]he participation of the New York department, with its 35,000 uniformed members and vast footprint on the country's policing policy, could permanently shift the balance in favor of the cameras, which both civil libertarians and many police chiefs have cited as a way to improve relations between citizens and law enforcement, particularly in heavily policed minority communities." The NYPD will be testing hardware from two manufacturers: Vievu and Taser International. While the 60-camera pilot program will get running for about $60,000, IT costs are expected to quickly outstrip that amount.
I am normally against increasing the number of cameras around and being under surveillance all the time. That said, I think NYC needs this to finnally start putting nails in the coffin of their stop and frisk program. Finally either one of two things HAS to happen: Either they collect massive amounts of evidence about how they have been stopping random people and trumping up charges, or.... the number of incidents must go down. Either way, its progress.
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There have been numerous instances where the cops have reported "malfunctioning" devices to avoid providing videos of situations which may have provided incriminating evidence. Just yesterday there was news about how a guy fell from a cop car into the water below while handcuffed and the police couldn't provide any video evidence! Maybe there should be strict penalties for losing video recordings as well.
When Eric Garner was choked to death by NYPD cops, cameraphones were rolling to capture the event. when they shot dead a man on 37th street for brandishing a knife, video was taken through bystanders. two years ago when a cop shot a homeless mans dog in East Village there was plenty of footage from bystanders. 11 months ago when the NYPD fired haphazardly into a crowd of people to control a single disorderly man, there was quite a bit of footage. when the NYPD dragged a nude grandmother from her apartment last month, plenty of cameraphones picked up the action.
Strapping a camera to a police officer at this point is moot. its designed to deflect attention from the routine use of disproportionate force against the citizens theyre charged with protecting. the actual issue the NYPD needs to deal with is either burned out or unfit for duty officers. Rookies fresh from Afghanistan and 10 year veterans with a calloused trigger finger need training, counseling, and support to help correct a systemic 'us vesus them' mentality. PTSD evaluations and regular, significant performance reviews should be a part of every officers career and something the police union should champion first. Strapping a go-pro to your departments beat-cops will result in either a glut of abuse evidence or no footage at all. Do not promote unfit officers to higher ranks either; the glut of stonewalled or ignored FOIA requests is evidence this is a bad practice.
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I would vastly prefer they make statements without access to the video. Seeing the video allows them to craft a story that fits what was recorded, and leave out or invent things that weren't picked up. If they don't know exactly what the cameras saw, they have to stick much closer to the truth.
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If you, the reader, has any experience with office politics or politics you know the popular underhanded technique of supporting something while undermining it.
Overhead, corruption, and incompetence are too often used as an excuse; many times it IS simply an underhanded attack by the "supporters." When NYPD spends $60,000 while saying it's going to cost more for only 60 cameras there are people involved who WANT it to be as expensive as possible of a deterrent. A high profile test group like NYPD will get cited all over the nation. Given how badly it is needed and demanded by the public, the costs are going to have to be high to deter widespread common use. Despite how actually cheap it would be - I bet their flash lights cost more... I had a cheap pen camera from china that was in that price range; it didn't last long or store much video but that was 6 years ago.
This is also where greedy capitalism comes in because that is all about how much the market is willing to pay--- and they've got to make sure this is a niche market so it doesn't have to compete with the extremely cheap mainstream market.
Sure, the way public budgets are managed is they take all projected costs (on the high side) then divide them out in ways that makes things like this seem like it's $10,000 a camera -- and one can sometimes spot the traitors because they'll focus on such false estimates.
Now it could be this is a totally honest move by NYPD and their high costs are because they are preparing for a full scale deployment with this just being a testing group. I'm just too cynical to take things at face value... wonder if any reporters exist who can hang around enough to pick up on such things anymore.
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step 4: When challenged by the victim as to police misconduct, assume the office is guilty in court and proceed with prejudice since you have a video of the officer disabling his camera.
Do you really think your idea is THAT clever? Do you REALLY think its not going to be obvious when there is video showing the officer putting tape over the camera?
Are you really that stupid? That question is directed at all the people that think 'putting black tape over the lens' is a way out. For fucks sake, how dumb do you think people are?
Hint: You aren't nearly as bright as you think and probably less so than the rest of the public who would watch the video of the cop putting tape over his camera and lying about why it was happening and convict him on the spot to prove the point.
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So far, the kid seems to possibly not be quite as innocent as originally depicted by the news and Al Sharpton types....
So, at this point, best to wait and see what the evidence and witnesses show as what happened that day.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Money can be shunted away from buying SWAT gear toward the cameras.
No matter where you go, there you are.
It's certainly subjectively good. But I think it's also an important case for monitoring data wise to see the objective value of these things. My hope is that it's a net positive for every important metric, because an even slightly mixed bag of results could be enough to talk a lot of departments out of the idea.
I agree. That's why I think it's important that ground rules be firmly established.
For one thing, camera use must not be discretionary. It must be used every time there is an interaction with citizens. Because otherwise, there is too much potential for them to be used only when it is in their favor, and at other times, "Oops, I forgot to turn it on."
So if a camera is not turned on, or data is missing or shown to be deleted, a serious inquiry should be made to determine the actual reason why.
Why do I insist on this? Because I was once a victim of "missing" camera footage. I was told everything was being recorded, and the light on the camera was on. But when it came time to go to court and testify, they claimed there was no recording and it had "never existed".
Which was complete bullshit, of course.
Never mind what it was all about. It was a non-criminal charge and despite their bullshit stories I was not convicted. But "I forgot to turn it on" is too easy of a bullshit abuse of authority.
BS! I'm sorry, but we really don't need to wait.
As a society, regardless of the situation, a representative of the state should NEVER shoot an unarmed man. Period. I don't care if he was holding a stolen television or smoking a crack pipe in front of the cop. That changes nothing.
Firearm usage should be the absolute last thing a cop uses. Not, as we've been seeing, one of the first.
I've said before and I'll say again -- the cop cams must, MUST be subject to the missing evidence rule: If the footage is not available, regardless of reason, the court shall assume that the missing evidence is maximally against the cops.