4 ms·

Without adversarial third party oversight police will continue to abuse the public.

NickC25 3y ago
This. So much this. The problem is that due to the underlying need for police cooperation in unrelated cases, no sane DA or judge would dare challenge a cop (or the police union) who can claim "oh it was a malfunction" or "oh uh the battery ran out" when it comes time for video footage to be reviewed and made public in the case of a police officer breaking the law. My proposal: make it someone's (or an anonymous board of lawyers') job to review any and all police video footage. The police union is not allowed in any circumstances to know who is doing that job, nor are they allowed to protest. Make it federal law that every officer when on duty has no expectations of privacy, and their body cam must be on 100% of the time when on duty, no exceptions. If you are going to work (and retire) on the public's dime, using equipment the public paid for, you must without question bow to public demands of complete transparency and full accountability. I don't give a damn what the union thinks, they are on our dime.
- engineer_22 3y ago
  State and Federal gov'ts have priority in prosecution. If it is true that DA or judge are reticent to prosecute, then the appropriate avenue is State/Fed
  - greedo 3y ago
    Guess where little State Prosecutors grow up? Working cases at the municipal level until they move to the minor leagues. Federal prosecutors work up the same route, so all the institutional bias and privilege is instilled early. How many Attorneys General worked as public defenders? I bet out of the current 50 US AGs, it's probably close to zero.
- SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago
  I agree with this except I think that policing should also be a highly educated position matching the expectations. Social workers and teachers are generally required to have graduate degrees, for example. Police academies are a scant few weeks in America, and these are people who enforce complex law in the most crucial life-or-death circumstances. Cops should be the best of us.
  - makeitshine 3y ago
    It can be tiered, where more training allows you to do more. On the lower end you have unarmed police giving parking tickets or having to be accompanied by a more highly trained cop who is performing less critical roles. More training is more pay and benefits, and they have to keep it current by reapplying and showing they've done recent training, like teachers.
  - jstarfish 3y ago
    You've never been through police academy, have you? It's like training for a fucking pentathlon. You have to memorize and demonstrate understanding of law, pass an obstacle course, meet marksmanship standards, pass a driving test under extreme conditions, and more. It's no joke. And they have to recertify on a lot of this yearly. Nobody's perfect. None of their critics can actually do that job. Most couldn't clear the first fence in the obstacle course. You'd hate being subject to the same surveillance at work as well.
    - sensanaty 3y ago
      I also don't carry a gun at work with which I can end someone's life. I don't want my comment to be taken as anti-cop because I'm not, but an office worker being monitored all day and a cop on duty being monitored aren't really equivalent at all. Shit, if lives depended on me & my actions and I worked in a field where big, heavy decisions could fall on me at any point, I sure as shit hope there's someone or something there to document it all.
    - greedo 3y ago
      Explain then why so many cops fail to understand (or follow) the law? They have a scant understanding of constitutional rights (and usually choose to ignore them when they can get away with it). And surveillance? Give me a break. At my job, all my keystrokes are logged. Every website I go to is logged. My email and chat are archived and searched for keywords and AI. And I'm not tasked with "Protect and Serve." I work for an insurance company. Cops have life and death power, so as Spidey tells us, with power comes responsibility. Don't like it? Don't pick up the badge... You should look at the educational and training requirements used by European police forces. They make the "police academy" look like the joke that it is. Or look at how the military trains MPs. MPs have a much better understanding and usage of force than the majority of police forces in the US.
- meepmorp 3y ago
  > Make it federal law that every officer when on duty has no expectations of privacy, and their body cam must be on 100% of the time when on duty, no exceptions. I'm not an expert, but I don't think that'd be possible at the federal level. Politics aside, local policing is controlled by states and federal control over those issues is largely limited to things like withholding funding for states that don't comply with federal program requirements.
Zigurd 3y ago
This should apply to all evidence and witness statement gathering and processing. It should all be handled separately from police and prosecutors and made equally available to both sides if it comes to prosecution. The incentives should be toward accuracy, not convictions.
danaris 3y ago
Yep. Body cameras are an attempt at a technological solution to a sociocultural problem—and those rarely work. We need to either change the culture—and adversarial third-party oversight is a forcible way to do that—or remove the tools the police use to abuse the public.
everybodyknows 3y ago
Counsel to the member of the public, whether appearing as legal defendant or as plaintiff against the police, should be able to demand full access to camera footage as part of standard pre-trial discovery. If police fail to produce the footage, judges should instruct jurors that the adverse inference may be drawn (in case they're insufficiently skeptical to do so themselves).

This. So much this. The problem is that due to the underlying need for police cooperation in unrelated cases, no sane DA or judge would dare challenge a cop (or the police union) who can claim "oh it was a malfunction" or "oh uh the battery ran out" when it comes time for video footage to be reviewed and made public in the case of a police officer breaking the law. My proposal: make it someone's (or an anonymous board of lawyers') job to review any and all police video footage. The police union is not allowed in any circumstances to know who is doing that job, nor are they allowed to protest. Make it federal law that every officer when on duty has no expectations of privacy, and their body cam must be on 100% of the time when on duty, no exceptions. If you are going to work (and retire) on the public's dime, using equipment the public paid for, you must without question bow to public demands of complete transparency and full accountability. I don't give a damn what the union thinks, they are on our dime.

engineer_22 3y ago
State and Federal gov'ts have priority in prosecution. If it is true that DA or judge are reticent to prosecute, then the appropriate avenue is State/Fed
- greedo 3y ago
  Guess where little State Prosecutors grow up? Working cases at the municipal level until they move to the minor leagues. Federal prosecutors work up the same route, so all the institutional bias and privilege is instilled early. How many Attorneys General worked as public defenders? I bet out of the current 50 US AGs, it's probably close to zero.
SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago
I agree with this except I think that policing should also be a highly educated position matching the expectations. Social workers and teachers are generally required to have graduate degrees, for example. Police academies are a scant few weeks in America, and these are people who enforce complex law in the most crucial life-or-death circumstances. Cops should be the best of us.
- makeitshine 3y ago
  It can be tiered, where more training allows you to do more. On the lower end you have unarmed police giving parking tickets or having to be accompanied by a more highly trained cop who is performing less critical roles. More training is more pay and benefits, and they have to keep it current by reapplying and showing they've done recent training, like teachers.
- jstarfish 3y ago
  You've never been through police academy, have you? It's like training for a fucking pentathlon. You have to memorize and demonstrate understanding of law, pass an obstacle course, meet marksmanship standards, pass a driving test under extreme conditions, and more. It's no joke. And they have to recertify on a lot of this yearly. Nobody's perfect. None of their critics can actually do that job. Most couldn't clear the first fence in the obstacle course. You'd hate being subject to the same surveillance at work as well.
  - sensanaty 3y ago
    I also don't carry a gun at work with which I can end someone's life. I don't want my comment to be taken as anti-cop because I'm not, but an office worker being monitored all day and a cop on duty being monitored aren't really equivalent at all. Shit, if lives depended on me & my actions and I worked in a field where big, heavy decisions could fall on me at any point, I sure as shit hope there's someone or something there to document it all.
  - greedo 3y ago
    Explain then why so many cops fail to understand (or follow) the law? They have a scant understanding of constitutional rights (and usually choose to ignore them when they can get away with it). And surveillance? Give me a break. At my job, all my keystrokes are logged. Every website I go to is logged. My email and chat are archived and searched for keywords and AI. And I'm not tasked with "Protect and Serve." I work for an insurance company. Cops have life and death power, so as Spidey tells us, with power comes responsibility. Don't like it? Don't pick up the badge... You should look at the educational and training requirements used by European police forces. They make the "police academy" look like the joke that it is. Or look at how the military trains MPs. MPs have a much better understanding and usage of force than the majority of police forces in the US.
meepmorp 3y ago
> Make it federal law that every officer when on duty has no expectations of privacy, and their body cam must be on 100% of the time when on duty, no exceptions. I'm not an expert, but I don't think that'd be possible at the federal level. Politics aside, local policing is controlled by states and federal control over those issues is largely limited to things like withholding funding for states that don't comply with federal program requirements.

Zigurd 3y ago

This should apply to all evidence and witness statement gathering and processing. It should all be handled separately from police and prosecutors and made equally available to both sides if it comes to prosecution. The incentives should be toward accuracy, not convictions.

danaris 3y ago

Yep. Body cameras are an attempt at a technological solution to a sociocultural problem—and those rarely work. We need to either change the culture—and adversarial third-party oversight is a forcible way to do that—or remove the tools the police use to abuse the public.

everybodyknows 3y ago

Counsel to the member of the public, whether appearing as legal defendant or as plaintiff against the police, should be able to demand full access to camera footage as part of standard pre-trial discovery. If police fail to produce the footage, judges should instruct jurors that the adverse inference may be drawn (in case they're insufficiently skeptical to do so themselves).