Anyone following the recent news in North Charleston, South Carolina, knows what Justice-insuring difference Video can make, when Cops decide to take the Law -- and the Verdict -- into their own hands. Far from prying eyes.
Video can make all the difference in the world ... between putting a Bad Cop behind bars, and letting that same Cop get away with it, scot-free.
And afterall the funds for this are already in the pipeline ...
Raymondville police get new policy on body cams
Devices meant to protect officers, citizens
by Fernando Del Valle, themonitor.com -- Feb 1, 2015
In the wake of unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, President Barack Obama last month announced plans to earmark $263 million in federal funds to help the nation’s police departments buy about 20,000 cameras.
[...]
[Raymondville TX, Police Chief] Zamora refuted some residents’ concerns that officers could delete data from the cameras.
“No officer can delete anything,” Zamora said. “All they can do is view.”
Zamora said only Taser International can delete the cameras’ data [on the police department’s five body cameras, which cost about $350 each.]
There's just one small problem though. Chief Zamora may be right, that Officers can't
Delete a Video.
But who or what's to make them Turn the Camera on, in the first place?
These Cop Cam videos, if they become standard equipment, will ultimately at times become Evidence -- and that means, like Evidence they must be tamper-proof. They must have chain of custody procedures and standards.
And they must "automatically turn on" whenever things get heated ...
Make cop cameras automated
The only way on-body recording systems can be trusted is by taking police out of the equation
by Joshua Kopstein, america.aljazeera.com -- March 20, 2015
Automation for transparency
[...]
A report on body cameras (PDF) released last year by the nonprofit Police Executive Research Forum shows that giving officers power over when to record is the norm. Most of the police department body cam policies reviewed “give officers the discretion to not record when doing so would be unsafe, impossible or impractical.” While obviously meant to ensure officer safety, such broad exemptions create an obvious loophole whereby cops can simply state they felt threatened and chose not to record. Further, the report found that of the 63 responsive police departments currently using body cameras, nearly one-third had no written policy governing their use.
Given what we know about the state of law enforcement, the police cannot be trusted as the sole masters of these body cameras. [...]
This is where automation comes in. If recording all the time is not practical or desirable, all body cameras must be made to automatically start recording whenever a weapon is drawn. In January the Los Angeles Police Department ordered a new line of smart weapons from the stun gun company Taser that does something similar. The camera system has a 30-second rolling buffer: Whenever the weapon is used, the events 30 seconds prior to the moment the camera was triggered are recorded as well. The system keeps a log of the time and duration of every weapon usage.
[...]
As far as gear goes, these critical devices are pretty compact:
The #1 On-Officer Video Platform -- taser.com
[...]
See Use-of-Force Incidents Plummet Your officers and your community will both be safer
TASER is on a mission to make the world a safer place, a call that Axon is fulfilling daily. The Mesa Police Department’s 10-month Axon camera study resulted in a 75% drop in use of force complaints among participating officers. The San Diego Police Department saw similar results: after their 14-month study, their use of force incidents decreased by 47%. People on both sides of the badge stay safe when accountability is expected.
Body-worn cameras continue to gain momentum as the public demands greater transparency from their law enforcement agencies. While cameras are an important step for accountability, they are only the tip of the iceberg. [...]
Get these Justice-insuring devices, ubiquitously monitoring Bad Cops' bad behavior -- all the time, without fail
-- and these Bad Cops will leave the Force in droves. Just as soon as they know, their "bullying behavior" will get shown to the world, and they won't have a self-righteous lying leg to stand on. Anymore.
Cop Cams Now! All the Time. Automatically-on.