Slashdot Mirror
LAPD Orders Body Cams That Will Start Recording When Police Use Tasers
HughPickens.com writes: Lily Hay Newman reports that the LAPD has ordered 3,000 Tasers which, when discharged, will automatically activate cameras on officers' uniforms, creating visual records of incidents at a time of mounting concern about excessive force by U.S. law enforcement officers. The new digital Taser X26P weapons record the date, time, and duration of firing, and whether Taser wires actually strike suspects and how long the thousands of volts of electricity pulse through them. "This technology gives a much better picture of what happens in the field," says Steve Tuttle.
The idea of using a Taser discharge as a criterion for activating body cams is promising, especially as more and more police departments adopt body cams and struggle to establish guidelines for when they should be on or off. Police leadership — i.e., chiefs and upper management — is far more supportive of the technology and tends to view body-worn cameras as a tool for increasing accountability and reducing civil liability. On the other hand, the patrol officer culture is concerned that the technology will be an unfair intrusion into their routine activities — for instance, it might invite over-managing minor policy violations. "In addition to these new Taser deployments, we plan to issue a body-worn camera and a Taser device to every officer," says Police Chief Charlie Beck. "It is our goal to make these important tools available to every front line officer over the next few years."
The idea of using a Taser discharge as a criterion for activating body cams is promising, especially as more and more police departments adopt body cams and struggle to establish guidelines for when they should be on or off. Police leadership — i.e., chiefs and upper management — is far more supportive of the technology and tends to view body-worn cameras as a tool for increasing accountability and reducing civil liability. On the other hand, the patrol officer culture is concerned that the technology will be an unfair intrusion into their routine activities — for instance, it might invite over-managing minor policy violations. "In addition to these new Taser deployments, we plan to issue a body-worn camera and a Taser device to every officer," says Police Chief Charlie Beck. "It is our goal to make these important tools available to every front line officer over the next few years."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
How about as soon as the holster for the taser (or gun) is unsnapped?
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
Well, how about starting them as soon as a weapon gets unholstered. Gun or taser doesn't matter. OK, the event that made the cop unholster the weapon isn't recorded but everything from that moment is. If the opposing party decides to back off then there would hardly be any need to shoot them anyway.
it might invite over-managing minor policy violations.
Have you heard of the broken windows theory? It may not be appropriate when applied to citizens, who are supposed to be presumed to be the masters of government, not its servants. However, when a person is acting in a public service position that has extraordinary authority and hence extraordinary responsibility, broken windows is far more appropriate.
LEOs are supposed to get in trouble for minor policy violations, and major policy violations should be virtually unheard of. Were we not on the wrong side of that balance, we would not have to implement solutions like this. The few bad cops did this to you. They are the worst enemy of good cops. Go put those mutts in jail, make that the new normal; then we'll talk about easing up on the surveillance.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
It's always entertaining to see you activists making these claims about police officers "taking pot shots from 150 ft at someone running the other way".
You guys have clearly never handled a firearm of any sort. If you had, you'd know how damn idiotic your claims are.
It takes a lot of raw skill, experience, training, practice, concentration and even luck to hit a relatively small and moving target, especially one that's moving away, from over 150 feet away, using a handgun. And that's under ideal, indoor conditions.
If you're so wrong about basic stuff like that, then I'm sure you're wrong about everything else you're going on and on about.