DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus Jury awards $4 to family of black man killed by sheriff’s deputies in Fla.

I mean damn. Your entire post is framed off the hilariously false narrative that only the left wants body cams. Which tells the board you have completely ignored the many calls for body cams on the right.

To address this specifically: yes I've seen calls for body cams from both liberals and conservatives. My experience is that both the frequency and ferocity for this is greater on the left. It seems more reactionary from the right, almost a "yeah, go ahead, let's see what happens!" kind of thing.

I could be off base though. Would be curious to hear other opinions on this.

Somewhere between one-fifth and one-half of U.S. police officers are wearing body-worn video cameras. It’s hard to tell the exact number, but we know the number is rising.

Body cams, which clip to the uniform or headgear of an officer, and are intended to capture the officer’s-eye-view of incidents, have been called the most important solution to police transparency in America. But as a recent podcast of our Quality Policing series shows, it’s worth looking beyond the rhetoric.

“Today I think I have found the solution that will help law enforcement officers and our citizens go home safe,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) said in 2015. “That solution [is] body-worn cameras to be worn by our law enforcement officers throughout this country.”

There was literally no evidence that this was true.

Scott had no scientific basis for his conclusion. He just … hoped … that it would work. And that was despite our national experience with dashboard cameras in patrol cars, which some police executives said would address the issue of racial profiling—but failed to live up to their promise.

Videos from body cameras, now being captured at a rate of hundreds of thousands of hours a day, have indeed been an important phenomenon in American policing. Last year, in the jurisdictions that deploy body cams, video was used by nearly every prosecutor, nearly 93 percent of them—in cases against civilian suspects.

Want to guess the percentage of those same prosecutors who used body-camera video to prosecute cops?

Eight percent.

Almost all prosecutors are using the video to prosecute civilians, and almost none of them are using them for what we thought body cameras were there for.

What’s ironic is that Sen. Scott, a host of other officials, activists, and the press were scaling Mount Hype on body cameras much more aggressively than even the companies that sell the cameras—which found themselves in the strange position of having to temper wildly enthusiastic expectations, based on nothing but hope.

In October of this year, the biggest-ever randomized study of body cameras showed no measurable reduction in complaints or use of force by officers in Washington, D.C.

If you think that means body cameras aren’t working, well… you’re wrong. The truth is, body cameras are working just fine.

They’re just working differently from the way people expected they would.

That’s a really important disconnect, because if you’re concerned about how you’re policed—and who isn’t?—you really need to know the full story.

A lot of our national expectations on body cameras were formed listening to politicians who were looking to be seen as “doing something.”

In 2014, as questions were raised across the nation about how well we could trust police, body cameras seemed to promise that now we could see what the cop saw. We could see the scene, and when the cop lied, the video would show it.

Then-Attorney General Eric Holder and President Barack Obama moved swiftly to get cameras on as many officers as possible, promising up to 50,000 cameras as a start.

And then…

No reduction in officer-involved shootings. No reduction in controversial incidents. No reductions in complaints.

The expectation was that, when officers had these cameras on their chests, people would be more courteous and less likely to fight, and officers would be more courteous and less likely to behave badly.

That’s not what happened.

What did happened was that police and prosecutors became better at demonstrating criminal behavior by civilians. Prosecutors in particular were able to more efficiently get plea deals.

Let’s be clear. As a serving police officer, I can confirm that body cameras are good for policing. They provide lots of evidence that we’ve never had before about how cops and citizens behave during interactions.

They have provided evidence in thousands of criminal cases that helped bring criminals to justice.

What’s more, body cameras provide transparency.

What is transparent, though, is the question: Sure, we absolutely get to see more of when cops do bad things, like the recent cases in Baltimore and Los Angeles of officers allegedly planting drugs on suspects.

But most of the time, the transparency that body cameras bring is evidence of civilians committing crimes.

In 2015, Hillary Clinton underlined the point in a speech at Columbia University in New York shortly after launching her presidential campaign.

“(Body cameras) will improve transparency and accountability and…will help protect good people on both sides of the lens,” she said, adding that “for every tragedy caught on tape, there are surely many more” that now go unrecorded.

She was right. Cameras do protect good people on both sides of the lens. People simply presumed that it was the cops who weren’t good, but the video is showing that in fact, transparency cuts both ways.

The most transparent fact body cameras have shown is that people—civilians—can act like asses while confronting cops, and the video catches a lot of it.

If you’re a defense attorney, you get this. You’re probably more worried about how and when videos are made. If anyone other than cops gets to see this from the front row, it would be Legal Aid.

“The big problem,” said Steven Wasserman, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society in the Special Litigation Unit, “is that the police control the button.”

From the defense table, it’s less about whether cameras are being used to go after misbehaving cops. Prosecutors who are using body worn camera video use it to decide whether to prosecute, and in preparing the charges they will bring.

If you’re imagining a courtroom with a jury watching, that’s not it. What the prosecutors mainly use the video for is to get to a plea deal faster. There’s evidence the video reduces time from arrest to plea.

This is nothing new to Wasserman.

“We’ve had video for many years,” he said, in an interview for our Quality Policing Extra podcast on body cameras in his lower Manhattan offices.

“I mean, there’s many video cameras that capture incidents and crimes, and it certainly has helped in many instances to resolve matters that otherwise would have been very uncertain and would have had to be litigated.”

So how do body cameras shake out for the defense?

“It is a sort of a net liability to the defense,” Wasserman said. “The important thing is to make sure the recording is done in a way that approximates some kind of even-handedness and objectivity.”

That is key.

“Everyone is coming to the body camera question with a totally different take on what these tools are going to be used for,” Prof. Seth Stoughton of the University of South Carolina Law School, who specializes in the regulation of policing, told us.

“The community thinks, ‘Hey, you got this for officer-accountability reasons, but all you’re using it for is to prosecute people.’ I think that has the potential to be taken as a failure, a betrayal.”

If that’s a failure, how do you even measure success?

We can’t. In 2016, Rachel Levinson-Waldman of the Brennan Center and I wrote a USA Today article in which we warned that if agencies didn’t declare what they wanted the cameras to do, there was no way to know whether they were doing it.

Regardless of whether there is video of an incident, as we all know from cop shows, officers have to write reports about everything they do. Should officers be able to view the body-camera video of the event they’re writing about before they write their report?

Or should they be required to write their report, then be allowed to watch the video, and then be permitted to write a supplement—in case they see something in their video that contradicts something they’ve written about the incident?

Proponents of this latter option, which is often called, “Write-Watch-Supplement,” say that it provides the fairest option for everyone. They fear that cops who watch video can unintentionally or intentionally modify what they write in their reports to match the video, as opposed to memorializing their own recollection of the incident.

Cops think this is just a theoretical game of “gotcha,” and point out that neither the video nor the officer’s memories are perfect recollection tools.

Few people have looked at these issues as closely as Harlan Yu at Upturn, a nonprofit based in Washington DC, who studies technology’s impact on civil rights and social justice issue.

Yu believes that policies governing the use of body cameras and the video they produce—from access by the public to use by officers and prosecutors—now strongly favor the police and the state.

This month in The Illusion of Accuracy, Upturn argued that the lack of policy requiring “Write-Watch-Supplement” is maybe the single biggest barrier to justice with body cameras.

“If body worn cameras have any chance of holding police accountable for misconduct,” Yu said in a Skype interview, “having officers be able to watch footage before writing the report makes it much easier for them if they were to try to push a false narrative to act for the camera and to do so.”

It’s worth noting that this is entirely speculative and theoretical. There has not been a case of cops getting caught engaging in this skullduggery.

A 2015 study that compared officer narratives to what was seen on the body video, found that cops’ descriptions of what happened, most of the time, are pretty darned accurate. That study was funded by a camera maker, and three of the five scientists involved in the study declared financial interests in that firm, but they declared their conflicts properly, and the methodology looks sound.

Another study that isn’t conflicted and will be released soon has confirmed these earlier findings, and expanded on them.

I’ve personally come to believe that Write-Watch-Supplement is ultimately better for cops. There are some really complicated but good reasons that come down to Graham vs Connor issues (the 1989 Supreme Court ruling that claims of “excessive use of force” must be weighed against the “reasonableness” standards set by the Fourth Amendment), and proof of officer integrity and credibility in the face of protest.

But I don’t believe that Watch-Write is inherently dishonest.

I do believe that policies about access to body cam video should be fairer, to level the playing field. For example, if I complain about a cop, I should be able to get access to video of the incident.

But there are a hodgepodge of laws making this less than simple.

In our podcast, we break these issues down further, and you can hear a lot from stakeholders, experts, and the media. I hope you take the time to hear it!

To address this specifically: yes I've seen calls for body cams from both liberals and conservatives. My experience is that both the frequency and ferocity for this is greater on the left. It seems more reactionary from the right, almost a "yeah, go ahead, let's see what happens!" kind of thing.

I could be off base though. Would be curious to hear other opinions on this.

so wait wait wait wait wait.

Hill was holding the gun the ENTIRE time?

if thats the case, why did the cops wait until the garage door started closing to fire? why didn't they shoot him on the spot?

this is the crap im talking about. if the cops stated that he had the gun on him the entire time, then it makes zero sense that they waited until after the door closed to fire.

so now, if they shot him, how did an unloaded gun end up in his backpocket, if indeed he held the gun in his hand the entire time?

and once again, what threatening action did he take that warranted the cops to fire?

If/when (when) police body cams are overwhelmingly more likely to be used to convict defendants (keeping in mind who is more likely to be a defendant in the first place) than they are to acquit them, we'll see what the reaction is.

Fast forward 5-10 years, and let's say all police officers are required to wear body cams. But with this, these devices also incorporate facial recognition technology and it is synced to a database that is continually updated with information about people who have warrants out for their arrest, "undocumented immigrants", and other persons of interest. And officers will instantly know the status of just about every person they encounter.

The problem I think is two fold, neither side wants them. lol

And 2 - with where the shots hit the door, we can be certain the cop was firing blindly.

I thought I remembered Devil saying that he and most of his fellow officers were in favor of them.. maybe I misremember..

Well that in itself is a violation of police policy

But not flaming, seriously asking because you are a fairly involved gun owner. But is it illegal to answer your door with a gun in your hand? I dont mean pointing it at anyone , but just holding it in your hand, I wouuld guess at your side or whatever the safe way to hold a gun that you are not aiming at someone is.

Which is why I said, they would be just another piece of evidence.. we have all seen in professional sports that even with something on tape, and those guys get it on HD cameras from 8 different angles.. and they STILL get the call wrong..

So I don't think cams are the end-all be-all to solving all of our problems, just another tool in the fight.

Is it legal? Sure. If you're in your house. Is it recommended? No.

Unless.

I've done it once. 4 a.m. - someone beating on my door. I didn't open the door though. I turned the outside light on, saw a guy in pajamas. Muddy, and bloody. I yelled through the door asking if he'd been in an accident. He hadn't.

911 call quickly ensued. "Yeah, I need the sheriff. Someone is beating on my door. He's muddy and bloody, and doesn't belong here." (that was actually my wife calling 911, as I stood at the door, watching the guy).

he has a gun and hes closing a door so i cant see what hes doing with it ...

BANG BANG ...

Like httt said we don’t have all the facts ... there was a reason i mentioned it ...

The article said he was BRANDISHING the gun ... to me that means it was not in his pocket and that he basically showed it to the cops ... IF it was still in his pocket that changes things ...

The article also said his daughter was sitting on a bench in the schoolyard across the street and said her dad didn’t have a gun .... that means those kids are in range ...

U may ASSume he’s not going to do anything ... not a shot in hell i would ... not with those kids more than likely in range ....

Its a real shame dudes dead ... its a cryin shame ... should have never happend ... based off what i know ... like i said .. BANG BANG ...

I’m not willing to risk lives if someone i have no clue what there capable of is drunk and has SHOWN a gun and i can’t see what there doing with the gun and there’s other targets around ...

Its real easy to sit here and 2nd guess ... real real easy compared to actually being in that situation ...

It totally depends.

Next you'll ask "depends on what?"

A lot of things.

So now the cop doesn't even need confirmation that the other person is threatening them with the gun or has intent to do harm..... if they are behind a door or a wall and you can't see them but you saw a gun in their pocket, that's enough to make the ASSUMPTION that the possibility exists so you can just unload the clip blindly into the door or wall and hope you hit the right person.....

Wow, that's really lowering the bar right there...

Completely agree with you DC. NO reason to blindly fire into the garage. There are gas cans, cars with gas tanks, and so many other possible flammables.

It's easy to play Monday Morning QB on this but seems to me that getting behind one's police car as cover and call for back-up/negotiator is the safest play.

And with limited interaction with him, they likely didn't know he was drunk...maybe thought there was a possibility but couldn't have know for sure unless they saw him falling over himself.

This one seems dirty to me. Probably the dirtiest and closest to manslaughter I've read in the 10-15 more sensationalized shootings in the last 4-5 years.

Yes, quite possibly.
Dude is still dead today.
Shot through a door.
He'll still be dead tomorrow.

At least his daughter's college fund is a dollar fatter. So everyone's a little better for having this experience,right?

he has a gun and he's closing a door so I cant see what hes doing with it ...

BANG BANG ...

Ok, so from now on we will go by your new rules. If someone has a gun, in their pockey, in their home, police can open fire through the walls because that person could possibly be a threat

The Father didn't shoot himself.

Well by his actions kinda did.

Well by his actions kinda did.

Had he just answered the door and talked decently to police and turned down the nasty racist music...all go away safe and sound. Your way not so much

Not if he's white.

Why do u guys feel the need to BLATANLTY LIE .... i said IF it was in his pocket that changes things ...

So why the need to BLATANTLY LIE about that ...

Just curious ... im not a liar ... so i’d like to know how u can blatantly ignore what was actually said and make statements like u did when it pertains to the gun being in his pocket ...