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Police have undermined the promise of body cameras

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Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras

#171

Post by crazygringo »

spurgu wrote: post #149
crazygringo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the one hand, as a matter of principle -- absolutely. On the other hand, bodycams run out of batteries or the electronics glitch or automated video downloads get skipped, in ways that simply don't happen with paper notebooks or data stored in central databases. To assume that it's always a dereliction of duty is not going to be reasonable in practice . Like, for whatever reason my cell phone doesn't automatically…

> And I have to assume bodycam software is less reliable than iOS/Android. I'd argue that it's waaaay easier to make stable bodycam software than a stable mobile phone OS.

Except that I don't think the bodycam companies are hiring the same caliber of engineers that Apple and Google are.

If they're like most other device companies, they're hiring the cheapest programmers they can find to write something quick and dirty, and not doing anything close to the level of review and testing that Apple/Google do.

Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras

#172

Post by spurgu »

crazygringo wrote: post #171
spurgu wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And I have to assume bodycam software is less reliable than iOS/Android. I'd argue that it's waaaay easier to make stable bodycam software than a stable mobile phone OS.

Except that I don't think the bodycam companies are hiring the same caliber of engineers that Apple and Google are. If they're like most other device companies, they're hiring the cheapest programmers they can find to write something quick and dirty, and not doing anything close to the level of review and testing that Apple/Google do.

Fair point.

Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras

#173

Post by jjk166 »

crazygringo wrote: post #48
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…

On the one hand, as a matter of principle -- absolutely. On the other hand, bodycams run out of batteries or the electronics glitch or automated video downloads get skipped, in ways that simply don't happen with paper notebooks or data stored in central databases. To assume that it's always a dereliction of duty is not going to be reasonable in practice . Like, for whatever reason my cell phone doesn't automatically…

> On the other hand, bodycams run out of batteries or the electronics glitch or automated video downloads get skipped, in ways that simply don't happen with paper notebooks or data stored in central databases.

Systems are going to fail, but they need to fail safely. If a bodycam is low on battery or not acting properly, there needs to be some notification for both the operator and department to know that the bodycam failed or is about to fail, and their procedure has to handle such cases. So for example have an indicator light that comes on at 20% battery power and officers need to return to the station and swap cameras when that light comes on, and battery levels at the end of a shift are logged automatically with a notification if any are returned below 10%.

Of course genuine failures are going to happen from time to time. If an officer falls and damages their camera in the middle of a shootout, they're not going to call a timeout so they can fix it. But such instances should be rare, documented, and reviewed. The department should at any given time be able to produce a list of what footage they are missing and why they're missing it, and such reports should be audited by third parties. During the review, evidence should be collected - pictures of any damage, software logs, statements, etc. as well as actions taken during that missing time, which should be reviewed with increased scrutiny. So long as the discrepancy is properly documented, it's fine, though procedures should be updated to prevent a repeat of this particular failure mode.

Basically if a critical piece of footage is lost it should be easy to show that this was an isolated incident and that it won't happen again. If they can't, then there is a fundamental problem at the top level of management. This is all standard practice in other high stakes fields like pharmaceutical production.

Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras

#174

Post by sonicanatidae »

Aachen wrote: post #111
sonicanatidae wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

A preponderance of these missing videos happen when officers are violating rights. The sentences were written as intended.

The difference between cops and criminals is criminals aren't public servants, granted powers beyond the norm, so they can do their jobs. That being a literal fact, yes.. they are held to a higher standard or should be. You're arguing a false equivalence.

As far as knowing "what happened there", that's literally the point of bodycams.

There is a fraction of the cases where someone's rights weren't violated. A fraction, a lesser amount, a smaller subset, a number lower in value, etc. etc.

And you apparently didn't even try to look at the web, so...ok!

Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras

#175

Post by stronglikedan »

crazygringo wrote: post #48
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…

On the one hand, as a matter of principle -- absolutely. On the other hand, bodycams run out of batteries or the electronics glitch or automated video downloads get skipped, in ways that simply don't happen with paper notebooks or data stored in central databases. To assume that it's always a dereliction of duty is not going to be reasonable in practice . Like, for whatever reason my cell phone doesn't automatically…

They check their weapons before each shift. They should check their body cams just as thoroughly.

Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras

#176

Post by sonicanatidae »

amelius wrote: post #110
sonicanatidae wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's probably more likely that people complain publicly about failed hardware if the hardware indeed failed. If you search for "hardware was working fine", yes, you probably won't find much, because that's not something people complain about.

Who's talking about complaints/feedback?

I'm talking about numerous court cases, where bodycam footage was magically unavailable, when all of the circumstantial evidence pointed to crimes committed.

I'm not after hunting all cops, or any of that horse shit.

I'm referring to accountability beyond the current 6 week paid vacation, qualified immunity slapped on pretty much everything, being able to simply quit a job after committing literal crimes and get a job in an adjacent city doing the same thing, and stupid -isms, like "Yeah, that guy died not because we choked him until he couldn't breathe, but because of "excited delirium".

Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras

#177

Post by engineer_22 »

kemayo wrote: post #66
engineer_22 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a jury would be very sympathetic to this argument.

You'd think so, but the average jury is extremely deferential to police. In part because a lot of places include some questions about how you feel about the police in the standard jury screening interview, and expressing any negative opinion about police-reliability is likely to get you struck. e.g. check out the NYC standard set of questions: https://www.nycourts.gov/judges/cji/8-Colloquies/Voir%20Dire... -- note th…

Text in question:

-> 11. Police questions: (a) Have you had an interaction or experience with a police officer or other law enforcement person, or formed an opinion about police or our criminal justice system that would prevent you from being a fair juror? (b) Under our law, a police officer is not more, or less, believable just because he or she is a police officer. A juror must evaluate a police officer's testimony for truthfulness and accuracy in the same way the juror would evaluate the testimony of any other witness. is there any reason you cannot do so?

If a candidate expresses an opinion that would be deferential to either side, they are likely to get struck. This is a feature, not a bug.

Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras

#178

Post by Fatnino »

kkielhofner wrote: post #43
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…

To my knowledge this is managed by the body cam vendors with the kinds of protections/assurances you would expect for something that will need to pass evidentiary chain of custody, etc for something to withstand scrutiny in court: https://my.axon.com/s/article/Uploading-and-charging-with-th... Almost kind of funny it uses the Axon-provided cloud at evidence.com. Not kidding. What this boils down to: if the camera foo…

Why is there a button at all? Record everything all the time. Sort it out later. The vast majority of it will be useless footage, but so what?

If I was a cop I would certainly want every donut I eat to be recorded if it also means there is no change I get falsely accused of improper interaction with the public. 99.9% of the time no one will look at my donut footage.

Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras

#179

Post by engineer_22 »

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…

These are shocking claims, please provide sources.

Re: Police have undermined the promise of body cameras

#180

Post by NickC25 »

jstarfish wrote: post #62
SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 th…

Who cares if anyone here has gone through the police academy? It's almost like training is required to do a job. Wow, what a concept!

>You have to memorize and demonstrate understanding of law

No shit...that's the entire premise of the job. Someone whose job it is to enforce the law needs to actually know the law.

>pass an obstacle course

You should see some of the cops in the cities I've lived in (Bay Area, NYC, PHX, Miami). Some are/were quite fit, but a bunch couldn't pass an obstacle course even if the only obstacle was "touch your toes" or "run a mile in under 15 minutes".

>meet marksmanship standards

You don't say? Someone whose job description includes "the ability to use lethal force when necessary" needs to know how to properly use a lethal firearm?

>pass a driving test under extreme conditions

Weaving in and out of traffic with lights blaring is NOT hard. People are required to get out of your way. You also have a great car with tons of upgrades, all paid for by the taxpayer.

>And they have to recertify on a lot of this yearly.

Good. Plenty of professionals in other fields have to do this too, and they don't get backed by a taxpayer funded union.

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