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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.
A lot of the things that have happened recently in the U.S. could have been put to rest - one way or another - with first person video (and often multiple points of view).
Dash cams are great, and we should continue using them on EVERY car, but every officer should also have this kind of tech. There should also be punishments or reprimands if the device is turned off during a shift (malfunctions aside). The video should also be streamed to their vehicles and, perhaps, even relayed directly back to the station.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
This is an appropriate application of technology to remedy a system that has shown to have abuses of power.
And. It should be sold to those who police us as, "Well, if you have nothing to hide..."
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
... shall be counterbalanced by body-worn citizen cameras targeting the police.
You're making it sound like cameras are a win for the police state that needs to be redressed. It's the opposite. Police cameras are a step towards accountability*, not big brother. Police cameras are already (figuratively) targeting the police, that's the point.
*Obviously this, possibly naively, assumes that mandatory police cameras are accompanied by appropriate penalties whenever they happen to 'glitch' during high-profile situations.
in addition to providing evidence backing up the use of force
If a police officer needs to use force for anything other than a massive shoot-out with criminal gangs then either he's failing as a police officer or America is failing as a civilisation. There are countries in the world where the police don't routinely carry guns. American police have killed more people in the first few days of the year than most countries do annually.
Police should be attempting to find alternatives to the use of force to resolve situations rather than backing it up.
One of the effects of body cameras is complaints against the police go down:
http://www.sandiegouniontribun...
http://www.cleveland.com/cityh...
http://www.policeone.com/offic...
Policing involves dealing with people who are motivated to lie; lie to the police and lie about the police. All cops hear all day long are lies lies lies and some of those lies get pointed at them. It's true that cops are less likely to abuse their position if they know they're being recorded but that also holds true for citizens lying about cops' conduct.
The net effect is complaints go down, but there are two forces giving rise to that effect; it's not just the police changing their conduct. Just sayin'
*Obviously this, possibly naively, assumes that mandatory police cameras are accompanied by appropriate penalties whenever they happen to 'glitch' during high-profile situations.
This is the big problem (which also exists with police dashcam video). I'm thinking that a good solution might be for police to not be in charge of camera footage at all - leave that to internal affairs. Have the cameras timestamp data and perhaps in the future, transmit hashes of video file sections or even the video itself for secure storage.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
It always seems like there are tons of "research groups" investigating every move the government makes. Who is paying these groups? Follow the money. They aren't doing it for free.
What we really need are body-worn politician cameras and microphones. They should live stream 24/7 over the Internet and any interruption of signal should result in a thorough investigation.
Some will (rightly) point out the privacy problems of police executing a no-knock raid and getting film of the housewife traipsing about in her birthday suit.
Some of them will then proceed to blame the cameras rather than the [unconstitutional] no-knock raids. It's important to be able to clearly analyze the entirely of these situations and realize that the cameras are pointing out yet another reason existing abuses need to be extinguished.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I agree that its win-win. Still there are a few tech challenges:
1) Upload - forget streaming, way too much bandwidth (think 1000's of officers for a large city, not just ONE stream). Will require wired connection and daily time for each officer.
2) Storage - need to keep YEARS of data for on-going and potential court cases.
3) Search and retrieval
[Insert pithy quote here]
Having footage of actual events is generally a good thing but my worry is that the footage may get edited in "post production" so to speak. Look at any reality TV show and it's pretty easy with some clever (or not so clever) editing to make someone appear far worse or far better than their actual actions. How long before cops learn how to start editing their footage? Who watches the watchmen? I know this stuff is covered under chain of evidence rules but I suspect there will be some loopholes and unforeseen problems to deal with.
If they are equipped with a camera, and it's not legitimately malfunctioning, then they should automatically be assumed to be at fault if the camera is off during a confrontation.
Honestly, these body camera should not even have an off switch, they should stream to a server in the officers vehicle, and instantly be streamed to other storage - at least one not controlled by the police department. They should also be required to return to the station and get a replacement if their camera is malfunctioning.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Sometimes these cameras amazingly malfunction...right during a fatal shootout with a suspect. Then they magically come back on, as if an unknown force doesn't want to be held accountable. it's amazing.
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.
then no video = no ticket no court even for DUI and for DUI $75 HR + all costs to the person locked up.
with police officers wearing cameras, they implicitly control the narrative. They know that they are wearing cameras, and will always be much more familiar than the average citizen with their capabilities and limitations. If a police officer sees what they interpret as an action warranting an escalation of force, they can ensure that this is captured, and (without being malicious) can ensure that it is captured in a way which most-"accurately" depicts their interpretation of the situation.
Ensuring that other citizens have the right to show things "from their perspective" is key. And honestly, it would be completely absurd to say to anyone, in any situation at all, something which translates to: you are allowed to open your eyes, but you are not allowed to remember what you see.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
There is going to be increasing surveillance of public behavior in the decades to come. Police cameras seem inevitable. Human memory is just so unreliable that recording what actually happened will be overwhelmingly attractive. And sports have shown us what regular review of video can do to enhance performance. We'll have to be strategic in regulating access to these videos since they could become another piece of a comprehensive surveillance network that could enable those in power to suppress dissenters. It seems that recording is going to happen. The question is about how those in power are held accountable for how they use recordings.
Leave it to an agency that is, partially, paid by the LEO wrongdoing incident they catch.
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
I think the cameras are probably a good idea, but I've got friends who are cops. And I'm not so sure they are going to be willing/able to let so many minor things slide if they are available for review with video evidence. There may be some unintended consequences here that a lot of people won't be happy with and might not be all that evident.
This is the big problem (which also exists with police dashcam video). I'm thinking that a good solution might be for police to not be in charge of camera footage at all - leave that to internal affairs.
So close, and yet so far. What you do is create a citizen's police review board for every police department and sheriff's office, and then give THEM the footage. I don't trust internal affairs much more than any other cops.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Can't they justify why they let things slide, or does their department has some kind of zero-tolerance policy?
How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean.
If you have usage-based insurance the car can report telemetry data itself. They could use the same system to automatically bill you for speeding.
Hey turnabout is fair play
I don't think that's a very good comparison. People driving around 10 miles an hour over the speed limit aren't acting as paid agents of the state, they're generally just normal citizens going about their private lives. Many people who are being paid to drive around, like truckers and taxi drivers and bus drivers, already do have cameras and other tracking systems on them. It's part of the tradeoff for being paid to do the job.
No one is suggesting that police should have to wear body cams 24/7, when they're going about their own private business. Only when they're acting as agents of the government.
The fact that cops, in general, hate to be filmed by the public is prima-facie evidence that it does need to be counterbalanced. As the saying goes, "if they have nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear" -- and that's a sentiment that legitimately applies to agents of the state, unlike private citizens.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Obviously this, possibly naively, assumes that mandatory police cameras are accompanied by appropriate penalties whenever they happen to 'glitch' during high-profile situations.
Present day footage does tend to get lost right at the crucial moments.
The important part of the victims using their own cams is that it provides a reality check.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I think the cameras are probably a good idea, but I've got friends who are cops. And I'm not so sure they are going to be willing/able to let so many minor things slide if they are available for review with video evidence. There may be some unintended consequences here that a lot of people won't be happy with and might not be all that evident.
Which is why the victims need to document as well. Especially when the cops get to threatening retaliation for following the law.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
"we need a coptube website."
Go to "Cop Block" or "Filming Cops" to see hours of police abuse and violence against citizens. That's the interesting stuff.
If you want a sample of what most "coptube" footage would look like, just park at your local doughnut shop, or beside the road and stare out the windshield.
The records/evidence should always be kept by an independent agency with no bias. Though investigations themselves should be handled by the same adversarial system that the public has to deal with. Again a case in Chicago showed that the system is often broken, when the PROSECUTORS OFFICE was acting like the officers defense team in the grand jury allowing the officers to address the grand jury without questioning, paying experts to argue that their actions were justified and presenting an opinion that the officers actions were justified.
Camera battery only has to last a shift.... and, as I mentioned, the data should be relayed to other servers for storage. I do not think it's as burdensome as you suggest. Small, portable, wearable tech... the officer could even have multiple units. Also, the footage does not need to be kept indefinitely, and only clips are required if there is an incident. I think if a cop does not report something, and nobody comes by for some time to report them for something, the space can be reclaimed. But the data should be public, and if some private entity wants to store it all in perpetuity, that'd be their own choice.
I could accept the cameras not always being on - but then I'd defer to the citizens in cases where the officer failed to turn it on.
As for what is a legitimate malfunction, that can be tricky. If the video is streamed to the patrol car and instantly relayed back to other storage, then a criminal wouldn't be able to break the camera without the footage being seen. I could see where, otherwise, a criminal could shoot a cop and then break the camera. I wouldn't want something like that happening. But otherwise, obviously, the receiver in the vehicle could warn the officer that there's no signal.
As for how much I'm willing to pay - the fact is we pay more than enough to do this. You'd probably disagree with me, but I can guarantee I could find enough taxes to cut to pay for this. The alternative is an escalation in claims against police - also costing millions in taxpayer dollars, even if the officer is found innocent and there's no payout.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
i would put one and only one "cutout" on that
If and only if there is a Massive amount of evidence otherwise (a group of Forensic Tech or a group of Neutral Priests is Giving Witness other video ect) then the police are "off the hook"
i would further have Criminal Charges filed (with any special circs in play) when police are found guilty of misconduct.
NO MORE THUGS WITH BADGES
Is that some kind of quantum effect?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Having something in your hand when a cop things you're not his friend can be dangerous. Pointing that thing at the cop is probably not a good idea.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
The problem is that the public may not have access. In many places, the video is only accessible by the police.
The problem is that there is nothing your own body camera would help you with in the case under discussion, because the cop would actually be entirely within their rights (some might even suggest it was their duty) to enforce those other charges if they can.
There are many minor things a cop can cite you for that they generally overlook because its hard to prove and not a good use of their time to try. They may be nitpicky things, but they wouldn't be trumped up charges. Your citizen body camera wouldn't help you in the slightest because it wouldn't be misconduct, they'd simply be enforcing more of the law.
That's the danger. When it becomes super easy to enforce certain laws that have been mostly ignored due to the difficulty of prosecution, those laws will be enforced to the benefit of the public coffers due to extra fine revenue. If body cameras not only make that easier, but also make it harder for cops to exercise their discretion to *not* charge you, that could be an uncomfortable scenario because many cops actually do give you a break, but if there's proof they ignored something, they may no longer be able to be nice about it.
.
Since the evidence may be for or against the police, the video should not be collected and archived by the police.
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Otherwise there is always the possibility that video which puts the police in a bad light may have gaps in coverage, or the audio may disappear, or the video itself may be "lost".
*Obviously this, possibly naively, assumes that mandatory police cameras are accompanied by appropriate penalties whenever they happen to 'glitch' during high-profile situations.
Body-cams are pretty much standard in most UK forces already, and there have been several incidents of civilian death where the cameras have been "faulty", including incidents with multiple officers on-scene. The most famous one was a non-demonstrator caught behind police lines during a (mostly peaceful) demonstration in London, who was thumped with a police baton and died. No-one was charged.
I personally think the only control any police officer should have over the cameras is a "I'm going to the toilet" button, which should be pressed in view of the toilet door, and an "overtime" button to stop the camera shutting down at the end of the day if the case they're working holds them back after scheduled hours. No police officer should be physically able to review or edit footage until the unit has been handed in to a court body that they downloads the footage to secure storage.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
If cameras do make enforcement of nitpicky BS laws a thing, it'll be interesting to see how it plays out. In a perfect world, that sort of scenario would provide motivation to get rid of those laws. In reality, it's tough to call which way it'll go.
Being glib, but every time the media reports 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.
That is called selection bias.
The body camera can show what actually happened, at least from one perspective at least, and that's good. I think all cops should wear them, subject to developing reasonable rules for privacy etc. But they can't show you what the officer thinks is happening, or the contextual information that led him to that. Those things are critical to judging whether the cop's actions are justifiable or criminal. A cop can shoot an innocent person because of bad information. Likewise a cop can shoot someone where the circumstances justify it, but without knowing that. In that case it's likely nothing will be done on the "no harm, no foul" theory, but you'd still have a rogue cop running around.
Take the case of the shooting of John Crawford III, who was gunned down by a police team in a Walmart. When this happens we get dueling, simplistic narratives: if Crawford was shot it must have been because he was a thug... Or, if you prefer, he was shot because the cops are evil racists. When the video came out the discrepancies between the police accounts and what you could see for yourself strengthened the left wing construction of the scenario: the police are evil, lying racists. Without denying the existence of racist, lying cops, this interpretation of events doesn't explain why the cops would want to shoot a harmless stranger in the first place. Yes, you can't rule out utter depravity, but if you consider all the circumstances the more likely explanation is that they were primed to expect an active shooter. Recent science can explain pretty well how someone can perceive what he expects to perceive, although of course explanation is not the same as proof. What an explanation should do is raise doubts about interpretation.
The Walmart videos essentially show the cops showing up and shooting Crawford immediately; there is no time for any of the things the police report happening to happen. Lying is the obvious explanation, but this could also be the product of a phenomenon many people have experienced personally: the brain's subjective experience of time is highly elastic. When you think you are in danger things seem to move in slow motion. That can interact with another, long-known physiological fact about visual perception. Look at your thumbnail at arm's length; that's roughly the area of the fovea centralis, which covers less than 1% of the area of your visual field, but accounts for about 50% of the information your brain receives. A few degrees to either side of that area and you can't tell the difference between a man and a woman, an adult and a child, or zucchini and a hand gun. But you don't experience looking at the world through a narrow tube, you experience it in super-widescreen high definition. That high def picture doesn't actually exist, it's constructed by your brain as your eye flits around the scene -- a fact exploited by magicians to create illusions. When your sense of time slows down, the picture doesn't go blurry; you still get the super-widescreen high def picture, but most of it consists of what you expect to be there. I expect this is what happened in the shooting of Tamir Rice. The officers perceived an adult male with a real gun, and perceived themselves having plenty of time for a good look, and were mistaken in every respect.
Controversial videos often tend to discount the ready-made "blacks are thugs" explanation, although sometimes we may be missing some key context. But what about the "cops are racists" explanation? Well, there's no doubt the police have their share of racist psychopaths, but the problem with jumping to that conclusion is that when you're wrong you end up leaving the underlying problem in place. That includes institutional racism, which by definition is impersonal. The problem stop-and-frisk, arrest quotas, and other attempts to employ police as behavioral control agents is that they lead to conflict and hostility becoming the routine mo
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totally different. Almost everyone driving a car does not have a mandate to use lethal force if necessary like police. And the goal should be keeping the peace not making the most money from any device that can be put in a public space.
Video from multiple perspectives is always helpful. I remember one (and unfortunantly don't have the link handy) amazing demonstration of this in which the two difference squad car dashcam videos are shown. The first you see a suspect running away from the squad car with another officer in persuit. Another officer approaches with gun drawn from ahead of the suspect and perpendicular to his direction of running, and as the suspect turns, the officer guns him down with a convenience store as a backstop for the bullets. It looks like a really irresponsible and unjustified police shooting if there ever was one. Then you see the camera view from the other squad car at a different angle in which the suspect pulls a gun out of his waistband while running and is beginning to point it towards the cops, and it all makes sense.
Cities have a financial incentive to increase red-light tickets, so they shorten the yellows. Doing this with actual police is expensive, you have to pay them to sit there and write tickets, but cameras don't get overtime and benefits.
Lets have a flash mob of people trying to record ever interaction with police. All it would take is a small scuffle to change a traffic stop into a mob scene.
If "Big Brother" is the state monitoring the citizens for evidence of misconduct, could the citizens' ability to monitor the state actors for evidence of misconduct be referred to as "Little Brother"?
*** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
This is great and all, but I'm waiting for the Age of Law Enforcement Accountability, where cases against police officers for excessive force resulting in death or gross injury no longer go through a grand jury and instead proceed straight to a jury trial. Until the District Attorneys stop fighting on behalf of the police to get them off in cases that clearly constitute murder, body cams are progress but not a solution.
*** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
We can all expect a lot of sudden EMP-like interference that wipes out the most important parts of the cop *and* citizens' cam recordings.
Not that it will have _anything_ to do with the little black box in the cops' other pocket.
And that's a major point. Selective enforcement of the law is an extremely bad thing. Whether the laws would actually get repealed or not is an interesting question, but even if they don't getting rid of selective enforcement may be worth it.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Also make it illegal to act officially while your camera is inoperable. I really dislike that in many departments the police can, at their own decision, turn off the camera. That has been used to cloak violently illegal acts, that wouldn't have been ever known if some bystander hadn't been taking a photo. Sound recording is also important.
There's lots of nitpicky technical details that need to be thought through, but the prime importance is that immutable records of police actions should always be available. I don't say made public when they aren't relevant. Everybody needs to go to the john. But they need to be available.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
It's happened already. Not, admittedly, frequently. But most people refrain from obviously filming police.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Taking this one further, if you have record of every police interaction and they become public record, external groups will start analyzing the statistics based on age, race, sex, apparent religion, physical attractiveness etc. Then the external groups will prepare studies that show discrimination based on age, race, sex, apparent religion, physical attractiveness. Then there will be protests based on these studies.
Twenty years down the line these may have positive effects, but the transition to that time will be tough.
"Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
Both sides can be filming and it not stop a shooting, too. Here is a video where the officer had a body camera and the teen had a cell phone recording. It didn't stop the officer from shooting him: https://youtu.be/h-uXeAvpVHk
Neither version helped convict the officer, either. It was ruled justified. I lean heavily in favor of the teen, but I can see the officer spin it enough to make it sound like a legit shooting. The poor kid should have sucked it up more and did what the officer said. But still, in the same situation, I would not have shot the teen. The officer called for backup, but did not wait.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
It is /. as you say... :)
An option on a lot of these wearable cameras is a bulk erase, dumping all recordings. I'd be surprised if a lot of departments weren't insisting on having that feature enabled by default.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
This technology only exists for the benefit of the police gang of the United States. From my first-hand experience in AZ, here are the 2 big things wrong with it:
1. The cams are easily switched on or off via a toggle button and there are no repercussions for disabling the cam at key moments
2. The footage is stored locally, never sees cloud storage or any sort of formal oversight.
3. Footage requests are sent directly to the officer. He/she may choose to not answer his/her email in a timely fashion, or redact/suppress some of the footage. There is NO oversight or accountability.
I have first-hand witnessed this. It is a very eye-opening experience to see a prosecutor help a police officer suppress footage.
Story:
Not too long ago, I pulled into a parking spot next to a police officer and my right tire chirped. As I exited my vehicle, my eyes focused on the receiving-end of a young police officer's Glock. After he arrested me on charges of reckless driving, read me my Miranda rights and tossed me in his car, he spoke with his buddies who had arrived. They try to question me (apparently unaware I was read my rights, unconstitutional), and then they decide to search my vehicle. They find an unloaded revolver and no bullets, and tack on a charge for posession of a deadly weapon, failure to admit.
On the arrest report, the officer states that "the entire encounter was captured on film". Fast forward 3 months, my attorney has only received 45 seconds of footage, the part where the officer has his weapon drawn (but not before; I wonder how the officer turned on the camera with 2 hands on his weapon? oh wait, it was already on). In email, the police officer claims this is all of the footage. My attorney thinks there is more. 3 months later, after 6 more requests, a rather impatient prosecutor threatens repercussions for spoliation of evidence. Another 2 minutes 30 seconds shows up in the LE Dropbox. This snippet has redacted audio. A legal document, signed by the prosecutor, stating that the officer did not capture any other footage, arrives in my attorney's email.
The encounter was 10 minutes in duration. The first video is with the Glock raised. The second video begins after I am in the cop car, doesn't capture any of our conversation or the vehicle search. Was this excessive use of deadly force? Maybe. Did I deserve a reckless driving charge? Maybe. Was questioning me about my vehicle after I was read my rights unconstitutional? Yes.
The only time we see "leaked" bodycam video is when somebody dies. Officers are still free to abuse the system, as long as they don't pull the trigger.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Actually, I think it'll lead to me being ignored even when there's video evidence that I'm jaywalking, while a young black woman who looks like she's got an "attitude" will be cited, and, for some odd reason, the video won't be lost.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
to make it so that cops get to write their reports AFTER viewing the cam footage. This is unacceptable, and indicative of the rampant police corruption in the USA.
Cams are not a cure-all, not even close. Cops will just turn them off or block them as needed; they are currently using them as an excuse to collect outrageous amounts of funds from poor people by using the excuse that they "no longer have discretion".
There is a war going on in this country, and the local PD's are part of that war on the poor. The problem is systemic and involves the DA's and prosecutors and dirty judges, and people that profit from the prison system itself.
The USA has a greater percentage of it's population in jails and prisons than ANY other nation; we are the harassment of the world. And none of us are any safer as a result.
Personally, if I was in a grand jury where the prosecutor acted like this I would vote for prosecution.
I also see this a a likely possibility. It would really make people aware of just how bad our laws really are, and hopefully create enough outrage to reboot the system entirely, because that is what is really needed at this point. There are literally too many laws on the books for a single person to read them in a single lifetime, much less understand them, and this is an extremely serious issue. As things stand the government can just make shit up that sounds like it might be a law and it would not really be contested because there is nobody in the whole damn world who actually knows if it is a real law or not.
Then make it illegal for them to use cameras that have the feature at all. It isn't like there will not be any available, when there are hundreds of thousands of these that they have to buy companies will make them especially for the pigs.
That's why cops should never be tried in the same district in which they work.