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A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

nytimes.com

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Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#191

Post by hedora »

djrogers wrote: post #128
fao_ wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be illegal otherwise, wouldn't it? Redaction of evidence

You would have to prove a) that it was evidence of a crime, and b) the police had reason to believe or know it was such. In the absence of laws requiring full transparency and access to body cam footage, the body cams are just likely to be abused.

That doesn’t sound right. My neighbor is accused of a crime, and upon hearing that, I destroy all the evidence that would exonerate them. That doesn’t count as obstruction of justice / destruction of evidence?

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#192

Post by bpchaps »

will_brown wrote: post #60

I was recently the victim of an armed kidnapping, escaping only by jumping out of my own car from the driver seat while in gear with the gunman in the passenger seat. By the time the police arrived, my attacker escaped in my car and the first words out of the sergeants mouth was “cut the crap, quit jerking us around, what really happened?” Sure enough I was in a jurisdiction that only two months prior was equipped wi…

If you're still interested in doing research, you could potentially do a foia request for the communications of the people involved in redaction.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#193

Post by mulmen »

kbutler wrote: post #170
EliRivers wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to be an armchair quarterback. I hear this every time someone with a difficult job has it pointed out to them that they're doing it badly. They don't even pretend that somehow makes it acceptable to do the job badly; I honestly don't know what effect saying it is supposed to have.

It's a recognition that there are complications beyond the simplistic picture one can get without personal experience. This often includes time, budget, and policy constraints the individual has no control over.

If airline pilots crashed half of their flights we would be right to criticize them. Having a hard job is no excuse for doing it poorly.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#194

Post by CyberDildonics »

will_brown wrote: post #60

I was recently the victim of an armed kidnapping, escaping only by jumping out of my own car from the driver seat while in gear with the gunman in the passenger seat. By the time the police arrived, my attacker escaped in my car and the first words out of the sergeants mouth was “cut the crap, quit jerking us around, what really happened?” Sure enough I was in a jurisdiction that only two months prior was equipped wi…

If they won't help recover your ipad, can you connect that as damages and somehow sue for the redacted parts of the tape?

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#195

Post by [deleted] »

rconti wrote: post #167
will_brown wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is what happened... The next morning I get a call from the detective in the county to the South confirming he obtained video from the gas station where this all originated (the defendant approaching me while I’m pumping gas). Next I get a notification from Apple my iPad has been found, which I placed in lost/stolen mode. I call the detective who doesn’t answer his phone and then the police station in the county…

Damn, that's terrible. I don't even get the police's implication here-- If you're trying to buy illegal drugs, you DESERVE to be carjacked, and furthermore they shouldn't try to press charges on the carjacker until it's proven that they weren't trying to sell you illegal drugs? The mind boggles.

[deleted]

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#196

Post by mulmen »

gozur88 wrote: post #130
s73ver_ wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel being shocked at how this person was treated is not just "armchair quarterbacking". Given the power and trust we place in police, I don't feel it's unreasonable to expect they treat people with respect.

... and that they're punished pretty severely when they betray that trust.

Sometimes.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#197

Post by stretchwithme »

will_brown wrote: post #60

I was recently the victim of an armed kidnapping, escaping only by jumping out of my own car from the driver seat while in gear with the gunman in the passenger seat. By the time the police arrived, my attacker escaped in my car and the first words out of the sergeants mouth was “cut the crap, quit jerking us around, what really happened?” Sure enough I was in a jurisdiction that only two months prior was equipped wi…

I guess citizens will have to be the ones wearing body cameras.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#198

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

dpark wrote: post #76
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not upset about what they measured. I'm upset about what they claim they learned from it and about the kinds of causation-related lemmata they (erroneously) assert in the report.

Firstly, you're critiquing a study based on a journalist's write-up about it. Secondly, you're essentially making an epistemological argument. You could apply your core argument to almost anything and come up with the assertion that the research is invalid. "Researchers tracked use-of-force incidents" -> "Researchers tracked reports of use-of-force incidents, which is factually rather different. "Researchers observed…

> Firstly, you're critiquing a study based on a journalist's write-up about it.

I'm critiquing a political abuse of a bogus study and also the bogus study itself, based on the study's language and based on the political website referenced by the journalist's write-up, by actually reading them. You can see them too at http://bwc.thelab.dc.gov/ and http://bwc.thelab.dc.gov/static/files/supplementary-material...

> This is merely a pedantic argument that things are not truly knowable.

Bullshit. I'm telling you that correlation doesn't imply causation and rather than saying "oh yeah, I heard that once somewhere, it was probably important" your response is "but physics jargon". They are measuring one thing and making, and these next words are key, an unreasonable leap onto something very different. In your boson world nobody ever doesn't report something that happened. In the real world that is very clearly false.

Even a mediocre scientist accounts for blindingly obvious confounding factors. A better scientist accounts for things that don't even seem like they could possibly be confounding factors just because they are differences. Neither of those appear to have happened here. They assume that reporting rates are predictable for different circumstances just by guessing, which is not a reliable assumption.

And on top of all of that, this report is likely going to be used as a giant war banner in the police union's fight to reduce the use of body cameras. And it just slides right over the fact that cameras actually do see police committing crimes and abuses for which they then don't get significantly punished and which would never have been uncovered otherwise.

It arbitrarily privileges "reported uses of force" as the target of attention rather than "witnessed crimes and other violations". Why? The report isn't titled "Evaluating the Effects of Police Body-Worn Cameras on Uses of Force: A Randomized Controlled Trial". It's called "Evaluating the Effects of Police Body-Worn Cameras: A Randomized Controlled Trial" full stop. And yet they are clearly ignoring huge categories of observed malfeasance in order to tell a particular dismissive story.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#199

Post by mulmen »

irrational wrote: post #27
mistermann wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Police officers are almost entirely decent people should perhaps be > Police officers are almost entirely almost decent people The fact that the "few" (so we're told) bad apples aren't rooted out by their fellow honest, law-abiding officers suggests they're not as squeaky clean as some might think.

Or they don't know. I had a coworker who was recently arrested for child porn. Despite knowing and working with him for years there was no indication that he wasn't "squeaky clean".

The difference here is that the bad cops are bat at being police. The criticism is not about something they do off the clock. Police should be able to ...police themselves.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#200

Post by mulmen »

literallycancer wrote: post #146
rocqua wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a decent privacy argument to be made against body cams. Not just for the officers themselves, but also for the people approached by the officers. In many cases, when police need to get involved people aren't showing their best sides. Recordings of that kind of stuff are rather sensitive. You gotta remember that body cams can't just be used against corrupt police, they can just as easily be used against the p…

>There is a decent privacy argument to be made against body cams. Not just for the officers themselves, but also for the people approached by the officers. In many cases, when police need to get involved people aren't showing their best sides. Recordings of that kind of stuff are rather sensitive. Why would there be any expectation of privacy for public officials?

I think the privacy argument is about the members of the public the police are interacting with.
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