Entering the Age of Body-Worn Police Cameras (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Cyrus Farivar writes about what's being called a new era in policing: the era of body-worn cameras. They're gaining a foothold in departments around the U.S. after a year of increasing tensions between police and citizens, caused by a series of high-profile shootings. Several research groups are busily evaluating how the cameras affect the way police do their jobs. Many officers welcome the technology — in addition to providing evidence backing up the use of force, it often helps with investigations, capturing details they may miss at the time of an incident. Farivar even goes through a couple of simulated encounters, while pretending to be a cop. The camera easily shows him everything he did wrong. In this way, police officers can also review encounters for training purposes. As more departments adopt them, it's looking like a win-win — police benefit, and the public gets access to some much-desired accountability.

Comments

Citizens recording

[vvaduva]

And it is quite foolish to assume that cops want to actually be held accountable. Citizens need to get their own body cams or use apps like Bambuser and Cell 411 to notify each other when they encounter police. Theses types of apps that stream live video are especially necessary for activists and people involved in police encounters on a regular basis. Cops have erased video from citizens' devices in the past in order to destroy evidence, so it is not wise to assume their body cams are there for our protection.

Re:Complaints go down for more than one reason

[serviscope_minor]

Policing involves dealing with people who are motivated to lie

Yes: cops.

Being glib, but every time there's some problem with the police (over hear at any rate), they release a statement, then a week later, it turns out that the police lied to try to save their own skins.