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Police have undermined the promise of body cameras

propublica.org

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Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras

#111

Post by Aachen »

sonicanatidae wrote: post #103
Aachen wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that an assumption, or based on any particular data set or even just a few data points you've anecdotally read about? The article doesn't mention this. It finds some cases where footage is (allegedly) unavailable, but does not look into how often footage is unavailable when nobody cares about it. If you think the cops are corrupt and delete footage of their own wrongdoing, that would need some backing up to be bel…

You can google for 2 mins and find many examples of hardware mysteriously failing while an officer was violating someone's rights. You can also find many instances of the video being magically deleted..aw shucks. Are there exceptions, like you mentioned? Sure. Are there many, many instances of that being bullshit? Sure.

> Are there exceptions [where it's truly accidental]

> Are there many, many instances of that being bullshit? Sure.

If you're trying to be fair by including the former sentence, then that should also include a "many, many" before "exceptions" unless you have the data I was asking after. As it stands, this adds no further information

> You can google for 2 mins and find many examples of hardware mysteriously failing while an officer was violating someone's rights.

If you think the cops are so bad, what about the criminals? I'd also claim the cop was violating my rights if I did something wrong and it's my word against theirs. How are you ever going to know what happened there? You can assume the cop was corrupt and the citizen innocent in all those cases, but if it were knowable then the citizen would have brought it to court rather than to the media, so I'm assuming it's unknowable who was right in most of those cases

There has to be a fraction of cases where their rights were not being violated as claimed and footage is still unavailable. Whether that is 1/10 or 9/10, neither of us apparently has the information to make such a claim, but you're making extraordinary assumptions without extraordinary evidence

Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras

#112

Post by jquery »

FireBeyond wrote: post #96
WillAdams wrote: post #5

A police officer in performance of his duties should have zero expectation of privacy, and has a legal obligation to fill out an accurate duty log, which is such that it may be used as evidence in court. Body camera footage should be viewed as an extension of that, and when missing or unavailable, that absence should be viewed in the same light as a failure to properly document something in a duty log --- it is a der…

> A police officer in performance of his duties should have zero expectation of privacy, and has a legal obligation to fill out an accurate duty log, which is such that it may be used as evidence in court. However, in 35 states, and this blows my mind, an officer can have "consensual" sex with a detainee. Even if they are in handcuffs at the time. 35 states have decided that this is not improper from an "authority" p…

35 states allow for that? I would've assumed 0 states allow for it, because, well, come on. Might as well let officers consent to taking bags of money from detainees.

Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras

#113

Post by carlosjobim »

PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #85
CptFribble wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, police should not be able to turn off the cameras, but the footage should NOT be public by default. Instead, the footage should be regularly audited by a vetted third party not connected to the police, police union, of families of police. The footage should of course be archived for some long period of time measured in years for use in proceedings, and audits the discover significant periods of no footage…

yeah, that's what we want, 3rd parties having access to SSN's, addresses, psychiatric details, etc. This all works in theory but not practice. If we were try to implement that in 20 years people would be complaining about fraud tracked down to some minimum wage worker reviewing tapes for these 3rd parties. this is why I said there's not an easy answer.

That third party is sometimes a roster of lawyers selected by the court in that jurisdiction. These dilemmas are not new, nor body-camera specific.

Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras

#114

Post by PH95VuimJjqBqy »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #99
PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, that's what we want, 3rd parties having access to SSN's, addresses, psychiatric details, etc. This all works in theory but not practice. If we were try to implement that in 20 years people would be complaining about fraud tracked down to some minimum wage worker reviewing tapes for these 3rd parties. this is why I said there's not an easy answer.

You already have this to an extent - how many people touch your medical records? I can look up people's past addresses online, it isn't all that private - which is fine for most folks, but bad for folks getting stalked. Heck, I worked at a landline phone company 25 years ago and they used the last 4 numbers of a social security number to verify everyone. Think about this every time you talk to a utility: That underpa…

I don't think you understand the risks you're talking about.

For example, people have been blackmailed over psychiatric records from their childhood.

Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras

#115

Post by PH95VuimJjqBqy »

lannisterstark wrote: post #94
PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, that's what we want, 3rd parties having access to SSN's, addresses, psychiatric details, etc. This all works in theory but not practice. If we were try to implement that in 20 years people would be complaining about fraud tracked down to some minimum wage worker reviewing tapes for these 3rd parties. this is why I said there's not an easy answer.

>yeah, that's what we want, 3rd parties having access to SSN's, addresses, psychiatric details, etc. ?? This already can happen by default for a LOT of people. I work as a subcontractor for a federal contractor in healthcare, and I can see all of them if I wanted to. We just don't.

> I work as a subcontractor for a federal contractor in healthcare, and I can see all of them if I wanted to. We just don't.

I also work in healthcare, I'd like to see you make that request.

edit: To draw an analogy. you may work for a credit bureau but if you start requesting records for celebrities you're not going to be working there for very long.

I've _built_ the systems put in place to limit and monitor for these sorts of activities in healthcare specifically as a result of the liability it puts the company under due to federal regulation.

Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras

#116

Post by njharman »

Eumenes wrote: post #9

I want elected officials to wear body cameras too

I wanted to wear a body camera in the form on Mediated Reality glasses but the public shamed/cancelled the early adaptors and manufacturers so much so that the product/concept was withdrawn from market place.

Everyone should be a glasshole

Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras

#117

Post by digging »

NickC25 wrote: post #32
saalweachter wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is another example of "an untested backup doesn't exist", as well. Regardless of whether some of the time, a police department is full of bad apples and concealing or destroying body-cam footage, if you treat your body cams as a backup -- and only look at it when something goes wrong -- you're going to discover that your body cams weren't working all along and no one noticed. And then you're going to look hella…

> Regardless of whether some of the time, a police department is full of bad apples and concealing or destroying body-cam footage Make it a felony to conceal or destroy body cam footage. Also, make it so that if a cop is accused of violating rights or involved in foul play, and their body cam "suddenly malfunctioned or were turned off or was left in the car" , a default judgement is given against the officer in quest…

While I agree with what you say for the most part, it's not a question of "what rules can we add on top of the existing structure?". Which is why simply adding bodycams has been so ineffective. We're only really going to be safe from cops by essentially nuking the entire system and starting over.

The core issue is that cops are far less vulnerable to prosecution or even non-legal accountability than almost any other citizens. Largely this is due to police unions. In addition to the structural inertia, there's cultural inertia - cops don't want to hold each other accountable either.

This is why people talk about reforming police from the ground up. It's actually easier than "fixing" the current system, which actively fights against accountability.

Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras

#118

Post by PH95VuimJjqBqy »

Aachen wrote: post #93
PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was trying to provide an example clear enough to be readily understood by readers, in no way, shape, or form, was I trying to imply my list was complete.

I wasn't asking if the list is complete. I was asking why this is even an example at all because I don't understand the reasoning

I believe you do understand the implications of filming a 10 y/o nude girl.

Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras

#119

Post by [deleted] »

koolba wrote: post #56
NickC25 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Regardless of whether some of the time, a police department is full of bad apples and concealing or destroying body-cam footage Make it a felony to conceal or destroy body cam footage. Also, make it so that if a cop is accused of violating rights or involved in foul play, and their body cam "suddenly malfunctioned or were turned off or was left in the car" , a default judgement is given against the officer in quest…

> Make it a felony to conceal or destroy body cam footage. Destroying evidence of a crime is already a felony. Conceal is a tricky one though as depending on placement the camera could definitely be obscured by normal day to day action (like a tussle). But again, if it can shown the action was deliberate, it’d be an action in furtherance of a crime.

[deleted]

Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras

#120

Post by kkielhofner »

fasteddie31003 wrote: post #52

Watching police body camera footage has given me much more appreciation for the tough job police have. I can't imagine having people actively try to kill me in my day-to-day job as a software engineer.

It's been really interesting to watch the rise of dedicated police body cam YouTube Channels. There are TONS of them and they often have millions of subscribers. They more-or-less paint two pictures:

1) Wow, this job is TERRIBLE. People doing stuff like committing a crime on video, going on a high speed chase, crashing into multiple cars and injuring people, finally crashing the car into a tree, shooting at the police, running on foot, hiding behind a building, and then fighting to the point it takes four-five cops to subdue them but then constantly screaming stuff like "I didn't do anything! Why are you hassling me? You better hope I don't find out where you live because I'm going to [insert the most disgusting, profane, and explicit sex crime stuff you can't even think of] to your wife and daughter". All while claiming they're having an asthma attack even though they just sprinted 1/4 mile. Then it takes the same number of cops 10 minutes just to get them in the police car because they're still fighting, spitting, kicking, who knows what.

The really bizarre ones are once they get in the car their primary concern is where their phone ended up... They end up at the jail with a "spit hood" over their head and their entire body strapped to a special wheeled chair where they can't move at all because they're still that dangerous. Most of us here cannot imagine it. It's the wildest stuff you've ever seen - hence the millions of subscribers.

2) Wow, this cop is TERRIBLE. Obvious racial profiling, screaming at people for doing nothing or committing minor infractions, beating/killing people for no reason, inventing charges, etc, etc.

People are people and it's a cross-section: terrible people doing terrible things on either side of the law. Obviously the police should be held to a higher standard but more often than not my take away is "I don't know how cops do this job without turning into completely cynical, jaded, paranoid, and aggressive maniacs". I've been on about 24 hours total of ride alongs in some "rough" areas and hit my lifetime quota. It's that disturbing, terrifying, and high-stress. After each "shift" it would take me a while just to start to reconcile what I experienced.

I think anyone would have a tough time dealing with someone who (for example) tries to kill you, threatens your family, spits on you, etc while still treating them decently and humanely. In many areas this is over and over, day after day.

In the US especially police are basically the "catch all" for all of the other (ample) problems in our society. The people on both sides are often in impossible, no-win situations.

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