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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

#321

Post by weaksauce »

apsec112 wrote: post #231
steamer25 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This seems to abolish the right to be "innocent until proven guilty". It's always possible to allege a crime that no one can prove didn't happen ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot ), so without a presumption of innocence, the system essentially puts the accused at the mercy of the accuser.

Take away their immunity if they can't produce the videos and try them as citizens. I can't recall the specific immunity but it's something like special immunity or classified immunity for police officers when on patrol.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#322

Post by taeric »

Brybry wrote: post #319
taeric wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it is not like an officer is enforcing ordinances at all hours. Nor do we expect them to be. Outreach is a thing. An officer goes in to give a fun speech to a school. Suddenly, kids in the class are being broadcast. I get it. Most of us are programmers, so we think we can setup a pretty solid set of rules for when something applies. Maybe some of us can. And when that perfect ruleset is found, it will be awesome.…

Psst. Kids in class are broadcast all the time on the news. Sometimes they're even identified by name, school, and municipality in recognition for some achievement. Honestly, privacy is nearly dead anyway. I'm not happy about it but there are databases with enough information on us to steal anyone's identity. With that level of information already existing... it seems kind of silly that what we're most worried about…

Certain kids are. Typically from affluent areas. Distressed schools typically have kids that need extra privacy considerations. They also need more police outreach.

As another poster said, this is solvable. Just will require more than a few rules.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#323

Post by stale2002 »

Sacho wrote: post #250
zaroth wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe in every jurisdiction that it's been tested it's been found to be constitutionally protected.

It doesn't matter in a practical sense. How are you going to prove the LEO prevented you from recording? It's your word (as a now suspect of a crime) vs their word, a respected public servant, and their partner, who will swear by them. Even if you do prove they stopped you from recording, so what? You don't have evidence of your interaction to implicate them. As long as they recite the magical words, that they believ…

It's not your word vs them.

You just start recording them, and then if they try to stop you, their attempt to stop you is now recorded, and hopefully in the cloud where they can't delete it.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#324

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

dpark wrote: post #234
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> I'm critiquing a political abuse of a bogus study and also the bogus study itself... It's disappointing but not surprising that you accuse them of "political abuse". Your own criticism seems clearly political because you start with the premise that it's literally impossible that they are correct . I actually agree with you that the results here feel suspect because they run so counter to my expectations, but I find…

> you start with the premise that it's literally impossible that they are correct.

I'm going to let you drift here, because you're continuing to respond to strawman interpretations of me rather than what I actually said and I'm not interested in the game of shifting goalposts.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#325

Post by Clubber »

mistermann wrote: post #304
Clubber wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When writing an opinion piece, at least in formal writing which has higher standards, writers are trained not to do that. At least in the writing classes I took ages ago. Here's why: https://preciseedit.wordpress.com/2009/06/19/in-my-opinion-i...

I don't know, if you ask me when in the field of public policy, this approach is a bad idea. When I encounter someone making proposals who is stating opinion as fact, I assume the person doesn't know the difference so I discount their opinion fairly strongly, because a lot if not most people in my experience genuinely don't know the difference.

Yes, journalism is a bit different, but typically opinion pieces either have OPINION written at the top of the article on the web, or appear in the opinion section of the paper. I generally stay away from opinion pieces because they deliberately try to convince me to a particular side of an argument, which usually excludes alternative information. I'd rather come up with my own conclusions.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#326

Post by Clubber »

zo1 wrote: post #278
danenania wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I would say it's misleading because it makes people think it's "not that dangerous" to be a policeman. While at the same time not presenting the obvious existence of things that "downplay" that statistic. I.e. That policemen are more often than not armed and able to protect themselves. We at least need to have additional data to make any conclusions about it. Not just the plain "deaths per profession" statistic.

If you look at the article I linked, the main statistic is injuries per profession. The actual deaths per profession has police as #2. Injuries per profession, the police is not even in the top 10. It depends on how you define dangerous.

It boils down to, I guess police is a dangerous profession, but certainly not in the extreme as shown by the existence of more dangerous professions. Also, being dangerous profession certainly doesn't excuse other types of workers to blatantly use deadly force because they are scared of their profession, and it shouldn't be an excuse for police to do the same. Yet, here we are, in a thread talking about police misconduct, and someone comes up with "but their jobs are dangerous," as if it should stand as an excuse for misconduct. It does not.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#327

Post by gozur88 »

andrewaylett wrote: post #264
syshum wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are? I have been following police abuse for nearly 15 years... I do not see any evidence of that

I think -- but am not certain, not being the GP -- that's their point: they don't see it happening, but think that a reasonable person would expect it.

You are correct. I meant the ellipses to indicate a continuation of the sentence, and if you put it together you get this:

"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."

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#328

Post by MertsA »

jandrese wrote: post #72
lostlogin wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet many people don’t on their phones that cost close to this.

Back in the days when you could replace the batteries on most phones they would be badly obsolete and unsupported in 3 years. Even today it's a bit iffy on spending the $50 to replace a battery in a 3 year old Android phone. A camera won't become obsolete nearly as fast. Assuming the cops shoot in HD today (it would be really dumb if they didn't) then that will still be HD tomorrow. Maybe not 4k, but honestly I don't…

I disagree, human vision is pretty amazing with a huge field of view and while the amount of detail is only really high at the center of vision to match what an officer can make out you'd pretty much need a lot of detail everywhere. I don't think we'll see affordable 4k body cameras for a while but there's definitely benefits to recording in 4k.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#329

Post by dpark »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #324
dpark wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm critiquing a political abuse of a bogus study and also the bogus study itself... It's disappointing but not surprising that you accuse them of "political abuse". Your own criticism seems clearly political because you start with the premise that it's literally impossible that they are correct . I actually agree with you that the results here feel suspect because they run so counter to my expectations, but I find…

> you start with the premise that it's literally impossible that they are correct. I'm going to let you drift here, because you're continuing to respond to strawman interpretations of me rather than what I actually said and I'm not interested in the game of shifting goalposts.

”This is literally impossible.”

That’s a direct quote. It is exactly what you said and it was exactly the first thing you said.

Accusing me of “strawman interpretations” is just dishonest, but quite in keeping with the rest of your comments here.

Re: A Test of Police Body Cameras Defies Expectations

#330

Post by Zigurd »

zo1 wrote: post #278
danenania wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I would say it's misleading because it makes people think it's "not that dangerous" to be a policeman. While at the same time not presenting the obvious existence of things that "downplay" that statistic. I.e. That policemen are more often than not armed and able to protect themselves. We at least need to have additional data to make any conclusions about it. Not just the plain "deaths per profession" statistic.

Cuts both ways: Considering how non-US police operate, often without being armed, and trained to deescalate tense situations, and the outcomes they produce, it seems as likely if not more likely that disarming many US police would result is fewer dead cops and fewer dead people in general.
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