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A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

nytimes.com

221–230 of 353 posts

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#221
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, being rude and blunt right away is probably about the most efficient thing they can do. I bet 70% of the time people change their stories when confronted with that line.

I couldn't disagree more. The police are there to gather evidence. They're effectively tainting evidence if they mistreat people or ask leading questions or the like. You'd better believe it matters when they come after you for (say) making false statements to the police, and it's their word against yours, and the court always sides with the cops.

It turns out that the best way to gather evidence isn't actually polite deference to every wild story you hear!

I don't understand your point at all about "tainting evidence" and how that could possibly follow from brusque questioning.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#222

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…

Force all videos to be streamed live publicly but locked under encryption and the key would only be automatically released afterwards with a smart contract e.g. on court orders or request

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#223

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…

While cameras can fail, every incident should be heavily investigated. Redacted videos is beyond absurd outside of special circumstances.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#224

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…

With meaningful regulation to prevent outrageous crap like this!

Ideally the camera streams would be maintained by an independent, non-commercial body, with clear tenets, written with privacy in mind.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fixing this will have to be the next step. The first step was getting the body cams. Also, you could probably file a suit to get the unredacted video, and you could make a big stink about this. That's how you get to the next step.

The body cams need to serialize their stream to a special satellite or cell provider, and a chain of auditable custody needs to be preserved at multiple data centers. Police cannot be the masters of their own footage. It needs to exist beyond bribery, lust and international intimidation. It needs to be out of their hands and into a web of trust, as soon as the photons hit the sensors. Then it comes down to jamming, t…

I think it would be enough if they encrypted the video contents and stored in blocks out of order, ideally I would also have it streamed but let's be realistic about bandwidth and availability requirements for that. In the end there will always be significant on device storage.

Make sure that the people who are responsible for the decryption and delivery of the content have incitement that the result is useful.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even in the top ten. Less dangerous than grounds maintenance worker. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/01/28/chart... As far as straight up getting murdered, it's in the top 2, but #1 taxi drivers are murdered at almost 3x the rate.

Statistics are deceiving. No one has it in for grounds maintenance workers and taxi drivers and they typically don't go looking for trouble. For policeman it's their job to go to dangerous places.

What about these particular statistics is deceiving? You can't just dismiss hard data without explanation. Why would your subjective impression of danger be more accurate than these numbers?

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even in the top ten. Less dangerous than grounds maintenance worker. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/01/28/chart... As far as straight up getting murdered, it's in the top 2, but #1 taxi drivers are murdered at almost 3x the rate.

Statistics are deceiving. No one has it in for grounds maintenance workers and taxi drivers and they typically don't go looking for trouble. For policeman it's their job to go to dangerous places.

>Statistics are deceiving.

Yes, in this example, I would imagine non-government job injuries are probably under reported.

>No one has it in for ... taxi drivers

Apparently they do. They get murdered almost 3x as often per capita as police officers. Maybe it's their money they're after.

>For policeman it's their job to go to dangerous places.

The same can be said for taxi drivers, delivery drivers, postal service, electric linemen, crab fishermen, loggers, proctologists ...

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#229
post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taser also operates a legal-defense-aid operation for police officers who use Tasers to break the law.

I'm gonna need a source for that.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/02/tasers-delirium-...

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fixing this will have to be the next step. The first step was getting the body cams. Also, you could probably file a suit to get the unredacted video, and you could make a big stink about this. That's how you get to the next step.

The body cams need to serialize their stream to a special satellite or cell provider, and a chain of auditable custody needs to be preserved at multiple data centers. Police cannot be the masters of their own footage. It needs to exist beyond bribery, lust and international intimidation. It needs to be out of their hands and into a web of trust, as soon as the photons hit the sensors. Then it comes down to jamming, t…

We just need to establish a legal precept that if the body cam footage isn't there to corroborate the cops' story, we assume the worst and they get held accountable for anything a plaintiff is able to plausibly allege. Under that scenario, most cops would become the biggest advocates for e.g., redundancies, backups and transparency.
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