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From the article: "...half of the city’s patrol officers were randomly assigned to wear body cameras each week, and instructed to turn them on whenever they mad

by avn2109 13y ago

From the article: "...half of the city’s patrol officers were randomly assigned to wear body cameras each week, and instructed to turn them on whenever they made contact with a civilian." This means that before Rodney King 2.0, the police involved need only "forget" to turn on their cameras. The only way body cameras bring an accountability benefit is if boots-on-the-ground officers lack the ability to disable them. Failing that, we've merely diminished civilian privacy.

betterunix 13y ago
There is a subtlety here that helps defendants with competent lawyers. The police and prosecutors will be more than happy to show video evidence in court when it justifies police actions -- it is pretty hard to raise doubts about the claim that a suspect charged at the police with a knife when the police have a video of it happening. When the police show up in court and claim to have forgotten to turn their cameras on, the defense gets a big boost -- "Convenient that you forgot to turn the camera on just before beating my client into a coma, yet you did not fail to turn it on in your previous 30 arrests."
- sneak 13y ago
  This is over-idealistic. Most cases never go to trial, especially when faced with "perp's word against cop". GP post is correct - the absence of video is not sufficient alone. The cops will just turn the cameras off when breaking the law.
  - comrade_ogilvy 13y ago
    I would hypothesize that it is a very rare police officer who walks around intending to break the law before they know the facts. They break the law because it turns out to be very convenient given how the situation unfolds (e.g. add a few extra baloney charges because the suspect pissed the officer off during minor misbehavior). The cameras are very convenient, too. It makes defendants cave when they see what the jury will see. If the convenience of the cameras is sufficient great (I bet honest officers will love it), the habit will be to always turn them on. Thus even the slightly wobbly officers will behave better, simply because it usually makes their job easier. What do you think will happen to police officers who both have an unusual number of gaps in their electronic record, and a lot of citizen complaints? Police chiefs want fewer headaches...
comrade_ogilvy 13y ago
I think "Rodney King 2.0" angle is being terribly unfair to the police, even though I so happen to find the police actions there deplorable. Those police officers were making a proper stop of a fleeing suspect. But they lost control of the situation, both the suspect and their own emotions, and could not think of anything better than to keep increasing the level of force applied when their previous application of force failed. IMO, their failure is we expect police officers to behave more like human beings and less like automatons. But they did not intend to put anyone in the hospital/morgue when they stepped out of their squad cars. Cameras might have saved Rodney King such a severe beating precisely because those officers would have turned on their cameras, since their initial intentions were proper. What the cameras would have done is put every officer on notice that their actions would be closely scrutinized, after the fact. They probably would have behaved better, if that were the case.

by avn2109 13y ago

betterunix 13y ago

There is a subtlety here that helps defendants with competent lawyers. The police and prosecutors will be more than happy to show video evidence in court when it justifies police actions -- it is pretty hard to raise doubts about the claim that a suspect charged at the police with a knife when the police have a video of it happening. When the police show up in court and claim to have forgotten to turn their cameras on, the defense gets a big boost -- "Convenient that you forgot to turn the camera on just before beating my client into a coma, yet you did not fail to turn it on in your previous 30 arrests."

sneak 13y ago
This is over-idealistic. Most cases never go to trial, especially when faced with "perp's word against cop". GP post is correct - the absence of video is not sufficient alone. The cops will just turn the cameras off when breaking the law.
- comrade_ogilvy 13y ago
  I would hypothesize that it is a very rare police officer who walks around intending to break the law before they know the facts. They break the law because it turns out to be very convenient given how the situation unfolds (e.g. add a few extra baloney charges because the suspect pissed the officer off during minor misbehavior). The cameras are very convenient, too. It makes defendants cave when they see what the jury will see. If the convenience of the cameras is sufficient great (I bet honest officers will love it), the habit will be to always turn them on. Thus even the slightly wobbly officers will behave better, simply because it usually makes their job easier. What do you think will happen to police officers who both have an unusual number of gaps in their electronic record, and a lot of citizen complaints? Police chiefs want fewer headaches...

comrade_ogilvy 13y ago

I think "Rodney King 2.0" angle is being terribly unfair to the police, even though I so happen to find the police actions there deplorable. Those police officers were making a proper stop of a fleeing suspect. But they lost control of the situation, both the suspect and their own emotions, and could not think of anything better than to keep increasing the level of force applied when their previous application of force failed. IMO, their failure is we expect police officers to behave more like human beings and less like automatons. But they did not intend to put anyone in the hospital/morgue when they stepped out of their squad cars. Cameras might have saved Rodney King such a severe beating precisely because those officers would have turned on their cameras, since their initial intentions were proper. What the cameras would have done is put every officer on notice that their actions would be closely scrutinized, after the fact. They probably would have behaved better, if that were the case.