IMO, the only way this would work would be if we implmeneted a law that makes officer testimony inadmissible if the officer fails to record (only the victim may testify). Basically, a near presumption of guilt. Otherwise, no point.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Commander Decks G MGC WB Teysa Tokens BR Wortsnort UG 23.5-No Edric URG Noncombo Animar GUB Damia Stax WBR Alesha Hatebear Recursion WBR Daddy Tariel UBR [Je]love-a Your Deck GWU Almost Critterless Enchantress WUB Sydri+Artifacts=WUB WURG Glint-Eye Combo
Quoting to make it clear who I'm responding to, but it's a little long to include the whole thing.
If you have a camera that is not on all the time, then whatever recording you get from them are inevitably tainted by the selection bias of whoever selected which portions to record. Cameras are only good if they're recording all the time, becasue a partial record is more misleading than a blank tape. The surveilance state is something to be feared, not because it records the activities of individuals, but because it misuses those recordings.
If you have a body cam on for a week of work, and show exemplary behavior for that whole week, and then turn the camera off five minutes while you beat someone, you have a weeks worth of recordings supporting your claim that you're an exemplary officer, while there's no video evidence of any wrongdoing. Don't you see how such recordings makes it more difficult to get justice for police brutality? The police can't themselves be responsible for deciding when to make the video recordings that are supposed to prove their own innocence, because naturally no police officer would willingly incriminate themselves like that, unless they have to.
Which is why recordings either have to be controlled by someone else, or would have to be on all the time. And "on all the time" is not technically feasible. Which leads me back to my previous statement: Can you propose a system for deciding what is recorded, when it's recorded and what happens when there are no recordings? I.e show me a system where the omissions necessary to commit brutality will be obvious. Because police, in most nations, have a very strong tendency to never witness each other do anything wrong, police testifying against other police is rare, why would police-controlled recordings be different?
Except for the fact that the people under surveillance are law enforcement officials.
The people who'll be recorded are police, second parties in police encounters, and third party bystanders. It's a public concern, not just a concern for police.
If you have a body cam on for a week of work, and show exemplary behavior for that whole week, and then turn the camera off five minutes while you beat someone, you have a weeks worth of recordings supporting your claim that you're an exemplary officer, while there's no video evidence of any wrongdoing. Don't you see how such recordings makes it more difficult to get justice for police brutality? The police can't themselves be responsible for deciding when to make the video recordings that are supposed to prove their own innocence, because naturally no police officer would willingly incriminate themselves like that, unless they have to.
Sure, but if they're required to put the camera in 'record' mode during EVERY interaction, and they don't for an interaction that ends up as a brutality case, the lack of documentation can be held against them.
If an officer who engages in brutality doesn't have recordings every time there is a suspected brutality issue, that cop can more easily be identified as a problem.
Lets be real, the guy who got choked to death by New York police was on camera and the cop who killed him walked despite the death being ruled a homicide.
I mean, I'm sure it'll help some of the time to have cameras, I'm just upset that it won't stop everything.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“Tell me who you walk with, and I'll tell you who you are.” Esmeralda Santiago Art is life itself.
Lets be real, the guy who got choked to death by New York police was on camera and the cop who killed him walked despite the death being ruled a homicide.
The Garner case is suspicious as hell, but the death being ruled a "homicide" is not the reason why. "Homicide" only means the death was caused by the action of another person, which I don't think anybody involved in this case disputes. It does not attach culpability to that person, not least because the M.E. doesn't have the authority to do that, and "justifiable homicide" is a very real thing. If Garner had been choked to death while, say, swinging a knife and shouting death threats, the M.E. would have called that "homicide" as well, but in court it would have been justified by self-defense. Of course, he wasn't waving a knife and shouting death threats. I'm not saying you should accept what happened as just. I'm saying you should understand the meaning of legal documents you cite.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Lets be real, the guy who got choked to death by New York police was on camera and the cop who killed him walked despite the death being ruled a homicide.
The Garner case is suspicious as hell, but the death being ruled a "homicide" is not the reason why. "Homicide" only means the death was caused by the action of another person, which I don't think anybody involved in this case disputes. It does not attach culpability to that person, not least because the M.E. doesn't have the authority to do that, and "justifiable homicide" is a very real thing. If Garner had been choked to death while, say, swinging a knife and shouting death threats, the M.E. would have called that "homicide" as well, but in court it would have been justified by self-defense. Of course, he wasn't waving a knife and shouting death threats. I'm not saying you should accept what happened as just. I'm saying you should understand the meaning of legal documents you cite.
Is suspicious the right word?
It looks like another example of people refusing to even bring to trial a cop who clearly overstepped and ******* killed an innocent man. What does it take for that to happen?
It looks like another example of people refusing to even bring to trial a cop who clearly overstepped and ******* killed an innocent man. What does it take for that to happen?
It may take someone running on the platform of holding the police to the same laws they have sworn to uphold. It may take long court battles. It may take peaceful protests including people of the lighter skin colors as well as the darker ones. It may take people committed to upholding the law joining the police force, even when they might rather wish to take a different path in life. There are different angles of attack for fighting the problem of police brutality disproportionately but far from exclusively affecting people of color in these United States.
This is one of the few issues I can completely support. Yes, the ways it should be implemented need to be worked out and it will have to be in conjunction with other methods of improving the interaction between police and people, but I don't immediately see how this could be a bad idea.
As long as the US justice system continues its biased support of law enforcement officials by means of its broken grand jury system I see little value in the ongoing camera debate.
It would be a huge waste of tax payers money when the actual root of the issue lies with the police culture and the lack of accountability across all spheres of government.
Your system is broken, and this knee jerk response is a bad way to go about fixing it.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Brilliant ideas are stupid ideas that worked - Patrick Chapin
As long as the US justice system continues its biased support of law enforcement officials by means of its broken grand jury system I see little value in the ongoing camera debate.
Would you care to give us a succinct explanation of how the grand jury system works, how it's broken, and how its brokenness contributes to the problem at hand?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
As long as the US justice system continues its biased support of law enforcement officials by means of its broken grand jury system I see little value in the ongoing camera debate.
Would you care to give us a succinct explanation of how the grand jury system works, how it's broken, and how its brokenness contributes to the problem at hand?
While I don't agree that the system is broken, I will chime in and say that prosecutors have a bit of a conflict of interest when handling cases involving Police Officers. They have to work with the Police Departments where these officers work, or at the very least have to maintain a professional relationship with Police. Their boss and the cop's boss might be what you'd call golfing buddies.
Combine that with the Prosecutor being the one who presents everything in a Grand Jury case, and you've got the potential for problems when the Prosecutor is under pressure to play defense attorney.
Should a separate court be created so that cases of police brutality are handled by lawyers with less connections to the police, or is that too extreme a solution?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“Tell me who you walk with, and I'll tell you who you are.” Esmeralda Santiago Art is life itself.
Combine that with the Prosecutor being the one who presents everything in a Grand Jury case, and you've got the potential for problems when the Prosecutor is under pressure to play defense attorney.
This is basically the problem. See here for real resolutions at the State level. Strapping people with cameras seems insane (and expensive).
So that's not a problem with the grand jury system, it's a problem with the execution of that system in these two extraordinary cases. Systematically, grand juries have such a low standard of evidence and issue indictments so reliably that, if there's a problem with them, it's that they're just a pointless rubber stamp for prosecutors. Which is why so many other common-law countries have dispensed with them and suffered no apparent ill effects.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Hrm... guess my 1st post got lost....
I think that only using body cameras is not enough. There is a whole list of changes that need to be implemented to really make a dent in the problems with law enforcement and abuse of authority. I am sure there may be more than what I can think of...
-Body Cameras. Yes, this is a good start but the cameras need to be set up so that the officers wearing them can not turn them on and off. We also need strict laws that punish officers from tampering with or obstructing cameras in some way. Police use their radio to clock in and out for breaks and lunch ans such, I think it would be possible to allow dispatch to send some sort of signal that turns the camera on and off when the officer is not officially on duty. Also, the raw video from the camera needs to be uploaded to an independent source outside the control of the local precinct or department. There was just a recent case in Virginia I think where the police doctored the audio of the tape before it could be viewed as evidence and the police essentially got away with murdering someone. The raw video was doctored and there was no way to really recover it.
-Independent Prosecution for all police misconduct cases. There is SUCH a conflict of interest between local District Attorneys and local law enforcement that it makes NO sense to ever allow local officials to investigate or determine if police should be prosecuted. The District Attorneys office depends on the testimony of police to make its cases day in and day out, and then suddenly we think they can be trusted to prosecute the very officer that has helped them put other criminals away? There should really be state level, independent investigators and prosecutors that look into police misconduct and prosecute the cases. These local DAs are abusing the system to get these cops off. You can see recently how abuse of the grand jury system is just the latest tool that DAs are using to wash their hands of any accountability.
Quote from Justice Antonin Scalia, United States v. Williams »
...neither in this country nor in England has the suspect under investigation by the grand jury ever been thought to have a right to testify or to have exculpatory evidence presented.
-Removal of Police Unions and shady labor contracts. One of the biggest problems no one ever talks about is the power of police unions and their culpability in police misconduct. The unions can put huge political pressure on lawmakers that try to pass laws that make police more accountable. The unions can marshal huge media campaigns to spread misinformation and gather money and support for potential lawbreakers. If you want and anecdote to make the point about how shady these unions really are, just look at this rookie cop in New York that got scared of a slamming door and shot this random man in the chest and killed him. What did he do for 7 minutes while the guy lay dying? Not radio for more police. Not radio for an ambulance. He texted back and for for 7 minutes with his union representative.
Public officials should not need to collectively bargain with other public officials. The labor contracts that police unions bargain for have some of the shadiest language in them. Why are police accused of misconduct allowed to view video evidence or confer with other officers involved in the incident BEFORE they can be questioned by Internal Affairs or District Attorneys? Why? Because their labor contracts say they can. Why do police have 7 day cooling off periods before they can be interviewed? Why do so many labor contracts allow police to retain their pensions even after being found guilty of outright murdering someone?
-More accountability for officers involved in misconduct. This sort of goes hand-in-hand with removing unscrupulous labor contracts, as it would make officers that commit crimes while on the job more personally liable, and ore at risk to losing their job and benefits. Right now police that commit crimes usually go on paid administrative leave, then have high priced lawyers provided to them by their unions for criminal cases. For civil cases the tax payers foot the bill for the cities lawyer, and for any judgement found. I feel that there has to be some way to make the individual officers more accountable. Once way would be to tread police like doctors and make them carry their own individual insurance, rather than have the local governmental bodies buy insurance that covers the whole department. So just like you have to pay higher car insurance when you rack up accidents, officers who are continuously making civil payouts for misconduct would have to pay more and more, and eventually be dropped and unable to work as a cop anymore.
</rant>
Oh wait... once more that's really not specifically tied to officer accountability, but what the heck...
-All revenue generated by tickets, seizures and forfeitures is mandated by law to be put into the state general fund. We really need to pass laws that take away personal financial gain from local law enforcement organizations. Right now 75% of what law enforcement does is generate revenue rather than investigate, or deter criminal activity. (And by criminal activity I mean activity where there are actually victims!)
Sortof a necro, but I'm new to this subforum and have worked as an officer before, and still work in public safety, so I thought I'd chime in.
Our department bought bodycams about a week after the Brown shooting blew up. As background, I work at a well-managed suburb of a middling Midwestern metropolis. We have an ample budget, so paying for the cameras was no problem. Some observations:
1. Aside from the expected griping about them being an invasion of privacy, most of the officers like them. One officer has already had his camera footage used to easily refute an allegation of misconduct coming from a person he arrested.
2. The department's policy on their use is that the camera comes on automatically any time the officer's dashcam comes on, which happens whenever they activate their emergency lights or the vehicle exceeds a certain speed (no one but the chief knows the exact speed). Other than that, the officer has to manually activate it, but the policy is that it should always be on whenever the officer interacts with the public. There are disciplinary consequences to not following the policy, with periodic video audits by supervisors to ensure compliance.
3. The technical aspects of bodycams is a real issue. Ours break all the time, including most every time an officer gets in anything resembling a fight. There's also the issue of periodically downloading the footage, which has to be done manually (unlike the cars, which do so wirelessly every time the car is parked in the garage). But I these problems will be overcome; the technology is still new and needs iterating.
As for my personal thoughts, I think they're great. As for my own background: I obviously work with police and have many friends who are police. But that is tempered by my being a fierecly independent libertarian that distrusts government authority (believe me, I appreciate the irony...and it's one of the several reasons why I'm no longer an officer). So I appreciate both sides of the camera: that it protects both civilians and officers. We can argue all day about what more needs to be done to reform police-citizen relations in the US, but body cameras are a fine place to start, as I see no downside to them whatsoever.
I have a subscription to Emergency Management magazine and I was reading that Seattle had a problem with one guy sending in open records requests for all the footage from all the cops. They must not charge for it, because they were sending him abridged versions of the recordings and having a lot of problems compiling it into an easily accessible format. He still found something that caused an uproar even though they were screening everything and giving him a few hours at a time rather than all the encounters.
I file open records requests all the time and departments are going to have a huge problem if watchdog groups have the time and resources to pay for everything. They'll also need to make procedure about what to give out and what constitutes public use over compromising an investigation, if it involves minors, technology to blur faces to protect witnesses, etc.
Just a little info on the bureaucracy side of things that I found to be interesting...
I have a subscription to Emergency Management magazine and I was reading that Seattle had a problem with one guy sending in open records requests for all the footage from all the cops. They must not charge for it, because they were sending him abridged versions of the recordings and having a lot of problems compiling it into an easily accessible format. He still found something that caused an uproar even though they were screening everything and giving him a few hours at a time rather than all the encounters.
I file open records requests all the time and departments are going to have a huge problem if watchdog groups have the time and resources to pay for everything. They'll also need to make procedure about what to give out and what constitutes public use over compromising an investigation, if it involves minors, technology to blur faces to protect witnesses, etc.
Just a little info on the bureaucracy side of things that I found to be interesting...
Yeah, that's a problem with policy. Honestly, they're allowed to charge a reasonable amount for it (and it IS a lot of work, so there should be a charge, especially with requests from random 3rd parties). There should always be a fee with this stuff, and they should have a policy for how to handle it in the first place.
I should also note that Emergency Management magazine tends to overplay the impact and significance of these things.
This is not a invasion of privacy. I thought this thread discussed this. And those that are saying this don't seem to be reading this thread. You have the right to be filmed on public land. Such as roads and sidewalks. A cop cant film you if he pulls you over in your house.
If he confronts you in public he can film you just like you can film him. You might not like it, but it is a right granted by the first amendment. ( I assume it is from that, filming to me is an expression of speech.)
And if Im wrong on my previous point, id also like to point out. Is brutality worth not being filmed to protect your self?
tl;dr: There is no excuse to why this isnt a thing yet, at least tested to be one. If someone can give me a counterpoint that proves this isnt a thing, i'll be suprised.
"When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together." - Michael Shermer
I used (past tense) to serve as a law enforcement officer. Some things to consider about the idea of wearing cameras on your person at all times:
1) as many have mentioned the privacy. Officers often are on for 8 straight hours without any designated time as a break. This means that any time that something comes up regardless of if you are eating or anything else you are expected to go straight to the call. This means that if you need to make a personal call, a bathroom break, a meal break you are always on the clock and expected to respond to any calls.
2) for the most part, the personal cameras that are of significant quality take a lot of battery. They are not capable of recording 8 hour shifts. Most of the cameras utilized by the police at the moment are short term portible use or wired into a power source.
3) Not every department has a large budget for gear such as cameras. If you make them mandatory how are smaller departments going to pay for them for all of their officers? Who then deals with maintenance of these cameras?
In an ideal world, officers could record everything and there would not be questionable situations. I served as an investigative officer who would travel across the state as well as a university police officer for a span of time. At the end of the time when I was with the university they had obtained two portable recorders but the video / audio quality was very poor and the battery life was short enough that they were essentially deemed unusable by the officers. To get good quality equipment it costs a lot of money and generally that is something that is hard to come across especially when you consider trying to arm all of your officers with these devices.
So, realistically you cant expect it more from a standpoint of money and technology. The technology exists to have portable cameras but their battery life is still that which you need to turn them on and off yourself as they don't support 8 hour use of realistic quality filming. On top of that, you get into other offices and its not unrealistic to do 10 or 12 hour shifts depending on what your department is designed to do.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I used (past tense) to serve as a law enforcement officer. Some things to consider about the idea of wearing cameras on your person at all times:
1) as many have mentioned the privacy. Officers often are on for 8 straight hours without any designated time as a break. This means that any time that something comes up regardless of if you are eating or anything else you are expected to go straight to the call. This means that if you need to make a personal call, a bathroom break, a meal break you are always on the clock and expected to respond to any calls.
2) for the most part, the personal cameras that are of significant quality take a lot of battery. They are not capable of recording 8 hour shifts. Most of the cameras utilized by the police at the moment are short term portible use or wired into a power source.
3) Not every department has a large budget for gear such as cameras. If you make them mandatory how are smaller departments going to pay for them for all of their officers? Who then deals with maintenance of these cameras?
In an ideal world, officers could record everything and there would not be questionable situations. I served as an investigative officer who would travel across the state as well as a university police officer for a span of time. At the end of the time when I was with the university they had obtained two portable recorders but the video / audio quality was very poor and the battery life was short enough that they were essentially deemed unusable by the officers. To get good quality equipment it costs a lot of money and generally that is something that is hard to come across especially when you consider trying to arm all of your officers with these devices.
So, realistically you cant expect it more from a standpoint of money and technology. The technology exists to have portable cameras but their battery life is still that which you need to turn them on and off yourself as they don't support 8 hour use of realistic quality filming. On top of that, you get into other offices and its not unrealistic to do 10 or 12 hour shifts depending on what your department is designed to do.
I don't think you have an accurate view of the available technology:
You are correct in the fact that this was a few years back that I served plus I was not in a position to be one making purchases by any means.
It is worth mentioning though that when something is advertised as 12 hour battery life it usually is not. That tends to be in optimal settings (ie possibly some sort of low quality capture) and the batteries on mobile devices tend to degrade over time which would happen if they are being consistently used daily.
The 12 hour battery life is also a situation where you have to ask how long batteries have to charge afterwards and how much additional batteries would cost. Most of the time this means having a different one for each officer as well.
I am not saying that this product is falsely advertised but generally speaking specs from the seller are going to be in optimal conditions sort of a situation.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
You are correct in the fact that this was a few years back that I served plus I was not in a position to be one making purchases by any means.
It is worth mentioning though that when something is advertised as 12 hour battery life it usually is not. That tends to be in optimal settings (ie possibly some sort of low quality capture) and the batteries on mobile devices tend to degrade over time which would happen if they are being consistently used daily.
Sure, there might be some trouble at the very end of 12 hours, but a 12 hour shift is not the standard. Certainly that gives plenty of wiggle room for your more standard 8 hour shifts.
The 12 hour battery life is also a situation where you have to ask how long batteries have to charge afterwards and how much additional batteries would cost. Most of the time this means having a different one for each officer as well.
It says on the page that you charge it overnight. Yes, you'd have to have a camera per officer. $400 per officer is not an absurd cost, especially when balanced against the cost of addressing false claims of misconduct without the cameras.
I am not saying that this product is falsely advertised but generally speaking specs from the seller are going to be in optimal conditions sort of a situation.
Certainly we shouldn't hold out for an absolutely perfect product. Even if the specs are for optimal conditions, they still suggest a product that would meet requirements is the vast majority of situations.
It says on the page that you charge it overnight. Yes, you'd have to have a camera per officer. $400 per officer is not an absurd cost, especially when balanced against the cost of addressing false claims of misconduct without the cameras.
Claims of misconduct are actually less frequent than you make them out to be. Most officers drive around in patrol vehicles which whenever they activate their lights automatically move into recording.
When looking at the news, situations of misconduct are overrepresented by the media. I am not saying they don't happen but I also don't think that the argument that putting camera's on officers to make them wear at all times is needed to "defend" the officers. Most cases against officers are unfounded or the media just trying to stir up traffic to their site.
I am not saying that there is no benefit of putting cameras on officers, but realistically until the last few years this hasn't even really been a feasible option. Its possible that it could be considered now but just 5-10 years ago it would have been an impossible attempt. Realistically though I think people are overreacting. Look across the world, we are lucky we don't have corrupt police officers here. Overall, our police force is still among some of the best in the world. I think that we are allowing a vast minority of situations be blown out of proportion.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
G MGC
WB Teysa Tokens
BR Wortsnort
UG 23.5-No Edric
URG Noncombo Animar
GUB Damia Stax
WBR Alesha Hatebear Recursion
WBR Daddy Tariel
UBR [Je]love-a Your Deck
GWU Almost Critterless Enchantress
WUB Sydri+Artifacts=WUB
WURG Glint-Eye Combo
If you have a camera that is not on all the time, then whatever recording you get from them are inevitably tainted by the selection bias of whoever selected which portions to record. Cameras are only good if they're recording all the time, becasue a partial record is more misleading than a blank tape. The surveilance state is something to be feared, not because it records the activities of individuals, but because it misuses those recordings.
If you have a body cam on for a week of work, and show exemplary behavior for that whole week, and then turn the camera off five minutes while you beat someone, you have a weeks worth of recordings supporting your claim that you're an exemplary officer, while there's no video evidence of any wrongdoing. Don't you see how such recordings makes it more difficult to get justice for police brutality? The police can't themselves be responsible for deciding when to make the video recordings that are supposed to prove their own innocence, because naturally no police officer would willingly incriminate themselves like that, unless they have to.
Which is why recordings either have to be controlled by someone else, or would have to be on all the time. And "on all the time" is not technically feasible. Which leads me back to my previous statement: Can you propose a system for deciding what is recorded, when it's recorded and what happens when there are no recordings? I.e show me a system where the omissions necessary to commit brutality will be obvious. Because police, in most nations, have a very strong tendency to never witness each other do anything wrong, police testifying against other police is rare, why would police-controlled recordings be different?
The people who'll be recorded are police, second parties in police encounters, and third party bystanders. It's a public concern, not just a concern for police.
Sure, but if they're required to put the camera in 'record' mode during EVERY interaction, and they don't for an interaction that ends up as a brutality case, the lack of documentation can be held against them.
If an officer who engages in brutality doesn't have recordings every time there is a suspected brutality issue, that cop can more easily be identified as a problem.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
I mean, I'm sure it'll help some of the time to have cameras, I'm just upset that it won't stop everything.
Art is life itself.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Is suspicious the right word?
It looks like another example of people refusing to even bring to trial a cop who clearly overstepped and ******* killed an innocent man. What does it take for that to happen?
It may take someone running on the platform of holding the police to the same laws they have sworn to uphold. It may take long court battles. It may take peaceful protests including people of the lighter skin colors as well as the darker ones. It may take people committed to upholding the law joining the police force, even when they might rather wish to take a different path in life. There are different angles of attack for fighting the problem of police brutality disproportionately but far from exclusively affecting people of color in these United States.
It would be a huge waste of tax payers money when the actual root of the issue lies with the police culture and the lack of accountability across all spheres of government.
Your system is broken, and this knee jerk response is a bad way to go about fixing it.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
To help, other guy: http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-procedure/how-does-a-grand-jury-work.html
While I don't agree that the system is broken, I will chime in and say that prosecutors have a bit of a conflict of interest when handling cases involving Police Officers. They have to work with the Police Departments where these officers work, or at the very least have to maintain a professional relationship with Police. Their boss and the cop's boss might be what you'd call golfing buddies.
Combine that with the Prosecutor being the one who presents everything in a Grand Jury case, and you've got the potential for problems when the Prosecutor is under pressure to play defense attorney.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
Art is life itself.
http://www.msnbc.com/the-cycle/watch/what-people-get-wrong-about-grand-juries-367839299951
This is basically the problem. See here for real resolutions at the State level. Strapping people with cameras seems insane (and expensive).
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I think that only using body cameras is not enough. There is a whole list of changes that need to be implemented to really make a dent in the problems with law enforcement and abuse of authority. I am sure there may be more than what I can think of...
-Body Cameras. Yes, this is a good start but the cameras need to be set up so that the officers wearing them can not turn them on and off. We also need strict laws that punish officers from tampering with or obstructing cameras in some way. Police use their radio to clock in and out for breaks and lunch ans such, I think it would be possible to allow dispatch to send some sort of signal that turns the camera on and off when the officer is not officially on duty. Also, the raw video from the camera needs to be uploaded to an independent source outside the control of the local precinct or department. There was just a recent case in Virginia I think where the police doctored the audio of the tape before it could be viewed as evidence and the police essentially got away with murdering someone. The raw video was doctored and there was no way to really recover it.
-Independent Prosecution for all police misconduct cases. There is SUCH a conflict of interest between local District Attorneys and local law enforcement that it makes NO sense to ever allow local officials to investigate or determine if police should be prosecuted. The District Attorneys office depends on the testimony of police to make its cases day in and day out, and then suddenly we think they can be trusted to prosecute the very officer that has helped them put other criminals away? There should really be state level, independent investigators and prosecutors that look into police misconduct and prosecute the cases. These local DAs are abusing the system to get these cops off. You can see recently how abuse of the grand jury system is just the latest tool that DAs are using to wash their hands of any accountability.
-Removal of Police Unions and shady labor contracts. One of the biggest problems no one ever talks about is the power of police unions and their culpability in police misconduct. The unions can put huge political pressure on lawmakers that try to pass laws that make police more accountable. The unions can marshal huge media campaigns to spread misinformation and gather money and support for potential lawbreakers. If you want and anecdote to make the point about how shady these unions really are, just look at this rookie cop in New York that got scared of a slamming door and shot this random man in the chest and killed him. What did he do for 7 minutes while the guy lay dying? Not radio for more police. Not radio for an ambulance. He texted back and for for 7 minutes with his union representative.
Public officials should not need to collectively bargain with other public officials. The labor contracts that police unions bargain for have some of the shadiest language in them. Why are police accused of misconduct allowed to view video evidence or confer with other officers involved in the incident BEFORE they can be questioned by Internal Affairs or District Attorneys? Why? Because their labor contracts say they can. Why do police have 7 day cooling off periods before they can be interviewed? Why do so many labor contracts allow police to retain their pensions even after being found guilty of outright murdering someone?
-More accountability for officers involved in misconduct. This sort of goes hand-in-hand with removing unscrupulous labor contracts, as it would make officers that commit crimes while on the job more personally liable, and ore at risk to losing their job and benefits. Right now police that commit crimes usually go on paid administrative leave, then have high priced lawyers provided to them by their unions for criminal cases. For civil cases the tax payers foot the bill for the cities lawyer, and for any judgement found. I feel that there has to be some way to make the individual officers more accountable. Once way would be to tread police like doctors and make them carry their own individual insurance, rather than have the local governmental bodies buy insurance that covers the whole department. So just like you have to pay higher car insurance when you rack up accidents, officers who are continuously making civil payouts for misconduct would have to pay more and more, and eventually be dropped and unable to work as a cop anymore.
</rant>
Oh wait... once more that's really not specifically tied to officer accountability, but what the heck...
-All revenue generated by tickets, seizures and forfeitures is mandated by law to be put into the state general fund. We really need to pass laws that take away personal financial gain from local law enforcement organizations. Right now 75% of what law enforcement does is generate revenue rather than investigate, or deter criminal activity. (And by criminal activity I mean activity where there are actually victims!)
Our department bought bodycams about a week after the Brown shooting blew up. As background, I work at a well-managed suburb of a middling Midwestern metropolis. We have an ample budget, so paying for the cameras was no problem. Some observations:
1. Aside from the expected griping about them being an invasion of privacy, most of the officers like them. One officer has already had his camera footage used to easily refute an allegation of misconduct coming from a person he arrested.
2. The department's policy on their use is that the camera comes on automatically any time the officer's dashcam comes on, which happens whenever they activate their emergency lights or the vehicle exceeds a certain speed (no one but the chief knows the exact speed). Other than that, the officer has to manually activate it, but the policy is that it should always be on whenever the officer interacts with the public. There are disciplinary consequences to not following the policy, with periodic video audits by supervisors to ensure compliance.
3. The technical aspects of bodycams is a real issue. Ours break all the time, including most every time an officer gets in anything resembling a fight. There's also the issue of periodically downloading the footage, which has to be done manually (unlike the cars, which do so wirelessly every time the car is parked in the garage). But I these problems will be overcome; the technology is still new and needs iterating.
As for my personal thoughts, I think they're great. As for my own background: I obviously work with police and have many friends who are police. But that is tempered by my being a fierecly independent libertarian that distrusts government authority (believe me, I appreciate the irony...and it's one of the several reasons why I'm no longer an officer). So I appreciate both sides of the camera: that it protects both civilians and officers. We can argue all day about what more needs to be done to reform police-citizen relations in the US, but body cameras are a fine place to start, as I see no downside to them whatsoever.
Modern: GW Hatebears/midrange, WGU Knightfall/evolution midrange stuff
Standard: nope
Legacy: W Death & Taxes
EDH (not Commander!): W Avacyn, Angel of Hope, GR Ruric Thar, the Unbowed, WGB Anafenza, the Foremost, WU Hanna, Ship's Navigator
I file open records requests all the time and departments are going to have a huge problem if watchdog groups have the time and resources to pay for everything. They'll also need to make procedure about what to give out and what constitutes public use over compromising an investigation, if it involves minors, technology to blur faces to protect witnesses, etc.
Just a little info on the bureaucracy side of things that I found to be interesting...
Yeah, that's a problem with policy. Honestly, they're allowed to charge a reasonable amount for it (and it IS a lot of work, so there should be a charge, especially with requests from random 3rd parties). There should always be a fee with this stuff, and they should have a policy for how to handle it in the first place.
I should also note that Emergency Management magazine tends to overplay the impact and significance of these things.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
If he confronts you in public he can film you just like you can film him. You might not like it, but it is a right granted by the first amendment. ( I assume it is from that, filming to me is an expression of speech.)
And if Im wrong on my previous point, id also like to point out. Is brutality worth not being filmed to protect your self?
tl;dr: There is no excuse to why this isnt a thing yet, at least tested to be one. If someone can give me a counterpoint that proves this isnt a thing, i'll be suprised.
1) as many have mentioned the privacy. Officers often are on for 8 straight hours without any designated time as a break. This means that any time that something comes up regardless of if you are eating or anything else you are expected to go straight to the call. This means that if you need to make a personal call, a bathroom break, a meal break you are always on the clock and expected to respond to any calls.
2) for the most part, the personal cameras that are of significant quality take a lot of battery. They are not capable of recording 8 hour shifts. Most of the cameras utilized by the police at the moment are short term portible use or wired into a power source.
3) Not every department has a large budget for gear such as cameras. If you make them mandatory how are smaller departments going to pay for them for all of their officers? Who then deals with maintenance of these cameras?
In an ideal world, officers could record everything and there would not be questionable situations. I served as an investigative officer who would travel across the state as well as a university police officer for a span of time. At the end of the time when I was with the university they had obtained two portable recorders but the video / audio quality was very poor and the battery life was short enough that they were essentially deemed unusable by the officers. To get good quality equipment it costs a lot of money and generally that is something that is hard to come across especially when you consider trying to arm all of your officers with these devices.
So, realistically you cant expect it more from a standpoint of money and technology. The technology exists to have portable cameras but their battery life is still that which you need to turn them on and off yourself as they don't support 8 hour use of realistic quality filming. On top of that, you get into other offices and its not unrealistic to do 10 or 12 hour shifts depending on what your department is designed to do.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
I don't think you have an accurate view of the available technology:
http://www.taser.com/products/on-officer-video/axon-body-on-officer-video
You are correct in the fact that this was a few years back that I served plus I was not in a position to be one making purchases by any means.
It is worth mentioning though that when something is advertised as 12 hour battery life it usually is not. That tends to be in optimal settings (ie possibly some sort of low quality capture) and the batteries on mobile devices tend to degrade over time which would happen if they are being consistently used daily.
The 12 hour battery life is also a situation where you have to ask how long batteries have to charge afterwards and how much additional batteries would cost. Most of the time this means having a different one for each officer as well.
I am not saying that this product is falsely advertised but generally speaking specs from the seller are going to be in optimal conditions sort of a situation.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
Sure, there might be some trouble at the very end of 12 hours, but a 12 hour shift is not the standard. Certainly that gives plenty of wiggle room for your more standard 8 hour shifts.
It says on the page that you charge it overnight. Yes, you'd have to have a camera per officer. $400 per officer is not an absurd cost, especially when balanced against the cost of addressing false claims of misconduct without the cameras.
Certainly we shouldn't hold out for an absolutely perfect product. Even if the specs are for optimal conditions, they still suggest a product that would meet requirements is the vast majority of situations.
Claims of misconduct are actually less frequent than you make them out to be. Most officers drive around in patrol vehicles which whenever they activate their lights automatically move into recording.
When looking at the news, situations of misconduct are overrepresented by the media. I am not saying they don't happen but I also don't think that the argument that putting camera's on officers to make them wear at all times is needed to "defend" the officers. Most cases against officers are unfounded or the media just trying to stir up traffic to their site.
I am not saying that there is no benefit of putting cameras on officers, but realistically until the last few years this hasn't even really been a feasible option. Its possible that it could be considered now but just 5-10 years ago it would have been an impossible attempt. Realistically though I think people are overreacting. Look across the world, we are lucky we don't have corrupt police officers here. Overall, our police force is still among some of the best in the world. I think that we are allowing a vast minority of situations be blown out of proportion.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies