Slashdot Mirror
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.
He has a couple of "meet the police" fairs, which I never saw before.
He has done everything right that Ferguson did wrong.
Now, the NYC police is not perfect, but at least they are actively attempting to do a better job, rather than attempting to prove how 'tough' they are.
The police have a hard job and the violent nature of their business tends to make certain foolish people think their job is to be as powerful as possible.
Glad to see that NYC is moving in the right direction.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
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.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
So they can't be blocked with a simple piece of tape. Because that that's gonna happen is just a no-brainer.
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.
Good people go to bed earlier.
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.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
So, 0.171428571429% of the NYPD will have a body camera. And as nimbius said above, it's not a problem of monitoring, it's a problem of psychology and mindset. It seems police officers think of themselves as soldiers fighting enemy forces instead of officers serving and protecting the public.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
This should help. For really incriminating behavior, I would expect the cameras to "malfunction" most of the time. But for ordinary, day-to-day contact with the public, it will be a lot easier to just not act like a complete asshole than to hide the evidence later.
When these cameras are used to feed a policeman's AR glasses and are running full-time face recognition, gait analysis and LPR along with a comms interface, you're going to have hivemind supercops, not necessarily a good thing with a so very imperfect set of laws.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
"While the 60-camera pilot program will get running for about $60,000, IT costs are expected to quickly outstrip that amount."
The idea of video seems good, just wait for the requests for compliance, data storage, lawyers etc. Can't see it going very far with 60K
Get up!
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.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
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.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Yes, police body cameras are far from a perfect solution. They're a definite improvement, though, both for citizens, and for honest police officers. Certainly, they won't record all interactions, and you might have situations where the camera "malfunctioned." That "malfunction" is going to create questions in and of itself, though. If you're an attorney suing the city over a complaint of police brutality, and the officer claims that, during the time your client claims he was being mistreated, the camera "malfunctioned," that's something the jury is going to take into account, particularly if the camera worked just fine the rest of the time.
In Albuquerque we struck on the perfect balance. Our ex police chief now works for the company that sell us our cop cams, and the cops are required to wear the cams (probably a good idea) so he has guaranteed pension-enhancing revenue.
And since the cams just happen to "malfunction" literally over half of the time whenever a cop shoots someone, the cops don't have to worry about the things generating evidence of police wrongdoing.
Even better, the police now say they spend about 15%-20% of their time (i.e. about a sixth of the public's policing budget) every day "processing" the downloaded video. So the police don't have to work quite as hard for their paychecks.
Everyone wins.
what's the difference between a joke and 3 dicks? (hint: in answer, substitue 'BitZream' and whoever down-voted me for 'your mom')
in seriousness though, away from insulting your lack of joke-taking ability, you are also ignorant as to how cops and the real world works. i can think of many ways that cops could still effectively get around the camera and it's ultimately being used in court. any number of things could be done to disable to camera and appear innocuous.. (how about black tape taken out of your pocket off camera.. OMG genius!!! couple that with the old 'hand over your badge' technique, and good luck picking one out of a lineup with your 2 swollen shut eyes.)
but more importantly, any record could get 'lost' just as easily. so long as the means of monitoring is physically in the realm of the cops themselves, you can count on them finding ways to deal with the evidence.. maybe not in all circumstances, but probably in many where it matters. if you think it can't or won't, then turn on the news and see the countless stories of late where with the whole 'country' watching, evidence/emails etc. have 'disappeared'. oops!
this is not to say that the whole idea is without merit - far from it. but if you think you can cure behavior that is a function of a rotting and broken widespread mindset with just a piece of hardware, you're in for a shock.
Well now that Heisenberg is no more, has your crime rate dropped at all?
I know next to nothing about what is required to inventory, issue, use, download, store, index, and recall all the hardware and video that would be required for such a system. I can only speculate. Has anyone had experience in this realm? Creating massive databases for video or images and indexing them in such a way that police reports could be tied directly to them and be pulled up as necessary?
If so, in your perfect world, how would you build the system and how much would it cost?
I'm going to take a shot in the dark (no pun intended) and guess you've never been in a court room. The police, district attorney / prosecutor, the public defender, and the judge are all best friends. It's a rigged system and they will not turn on their friends, because as the police bring in BS cases it keeps the public defender employed, keeps the DA / local prosecutor employed, and it lets the judge get re-elected by saying they're "tough on crime".
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
The cop cameras will presumably have evidential and tamper resistant design.
if you're concerned about off-camera and camera broken incidents - it would be interesting if you could also purchase one of them.
This could also help with corrupt cops, ones on the dole you know? wont be able to try and bribe a cop if hes wearing a camera
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Dude, just fucking quit. You're idea is retarded. Everything you can come up with short of a MASSIVE EMP would leave obvious evidence of the tamper. The EMP size required would leave evidence as well in other ways that would be fairly easy to spot. You'd need a truly large EMP to destroy the recording of you trying to disable the device, and thats just not something thats going to go unnoticed ... destroying flash memory for instance, is non-trivial without begin obvious.
Thats the point of a recording device like these, even if you cover your tracks by disabling it, you've still shown that you intentionally disabled it. You seem to live in some hollywood style world where all these cheese movie ploys work in the real world.
You weren't making a joke, you were being a dumbass, stop trying to pretend otherwise. Stop with the 'putting tape over the camera' ITS GOING TO RECORD YOUR HAND PUTTING TAPE OVER THE LENSE DUMBASS. It doesn't matter where you pull the tape from, its going to be easy to spot when the recording goes from working fine to suddenly having a black object slide over it and it goes dark ... hmmm ... I wonder what that could be?!?!?!? Just stop mentioning it. Its a stupid idea.
At no point in history did having a badge number have any meaning what so ever. This isn't Starsky and Hutch. Badge numbers are public information, now days you can find them on a website. Spewing one out of your mouth is as easy as spewing a random name you find on a police department roster. Its meaningless.
Records getting 'lost' is called 'spoliation of evidence'. When it happens in any trial, the police/DA are almost always assumed to be completely wrong/guilty from that point on as a matter of standard procedure ... BY LAW. The problem you're trying to claim exist was solved years ago by making mysteriously disappearing evidence essentially an admission of guilt ... BY LAW. Any 2 bit lawyer on the planet would have a field day with it.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I have unfortunately. There is a reason they are 'friends'.
The police, DA, judge ARE buddy buddy, they see and work with each other every day, its dumb to expect them not to trust each other ... but as soon as there is evidence rather than heresy they tend to back off and hang the cop out to dry. They protect the cop by default because 99 times out of 90, the 'victim' isn't a victim and is lying to deflect blame, get out of trouble or get some sort of money out of the police. Ferguson is a prime example of this. Multiple witnesses claiming the kid was shot in the back while running away with his hands up ... yet all the bullet wounds show that to be complete and utter bullshit ... all the wounds entered from the front, and the wounds in his arm made it clear they were not in the air when he was shot. This came from an autopsy done by someone hired by the victims mother, NOT the local government. THAT SHIT is why the judge/da believe the cop by default, and THAT is why cops get by with being thugs in some instances. That sort of shit is also why MANY of them ARE thugs, because they deal with the trashiest of trashy people most of the time. Thats their job, by definition.
These cameras will stop both sides from being such open and obvious racists. Well, no, it won't stop them, but it'll make it obvious for everyone else so we don't have riots in towns because a bunch of people wanted to cover each others asses and start shit because one guy was a different color than the other.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
i stopped reading your novella after the first two sentences.. the stupidity made my brain hurt, so i skimmed a little of the rest.
a) tongue-in-cheek humor is still humor. b) you still believe equitable resolution occurs a majority of the time by things going (and making it) to trial? how adorable.
but as soon as there is evidence rather than heresy they tend to back off and hang the cop out to dry Not true at all. I've sat in my local courthouse to watch for a few hours and see what really goes on - I watched multiple cases where there was no evidence at all, simply a cop's claims and they all resulted in guilty verdicts.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Better get some for Houston too
"Houston police shot to death a double amputee in a wheelchair who they said was trying to stab an officer with a pen."
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/23/...
You can't make this shit up.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Doesn't change the event itself, no - but a pattern of errors can speak volumes about intent and state of mind. And many crimes (and torts) depend on intent and belief. So, note, do many defenses.
No. I am, in fact, relying on the deterrent effect of the video. I am trying to prevent lying, not catch someone in a lie. If you know your actions are being monitored, you will behave differently and note what happens more carefully. I'm not trying to 'trip people up'. I am trying to help make it so that testimony is actually accurate. If people are given the opportunity to slant their narrative, they will - this a human thing, hardly limited to police. By reducing the opportunity for this, by requiring people to more carefully examine their memories and words, I'm hoping to make "our justice system" better.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
record for long enough on a charge, storage card, be pinned to a lapel and survive even a minimum of abuse?
I honestly expected to see the camera's priced at like $20,000 each not because they need to be, just because of all the corruption fees all the way up.
so kudos NYC i'm impressed 1k/camera is pretty close to reasonable.
That was a TV show.
A work of fiction.
You shouldn't take what you saw seriously. It's not real.
What I'm trying to delicately explain to you, is that Heisenberg is still alive.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I'm not quite sure how your description of what happens when there is no evidence refutes GP's description of what happens when there is evidence. Although I'm pretty sure he meant "hearsay" instead of "heresy"
So what you're saying is, if a knock arrives at my door -- under no circumstances should I answer it?
If the cameras are only under the control of the people they are supposed to be monitoring, they will wind up being used only to clear, never to convict. I don't want the police getting any access to the videos that the accused doesn't have.
Honest mistakes are already 'abused' in our legal system. Cameras add nothing to that. But they can - if the system is set up properly - reduce a whole host of other abuses.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!