Body cams on cops; unintended consequences?

ManglerYJ said:
It's also unacceptable that she continued her phone conversation after being pulled over.
Click to expand...

Agree!

Hang up the fawking phone! Idiot.
 
jankoid said:
My question is how much is it going to cost to store and manage all of these recordings?
Click to expand...

It might not work out financially, but I would hope that having the videos would reduce legal expenses for the police department, and those savings would be more than the cost of the cameras.
 
I love how she said. Why y'all pull a gun when he reached in the book bag.

Because shenana people do stupid things all the time and your flat bill wearing boo could of had a gun in there.

I am stopped occasionally for minor traffic violations and even the cocky cops have always respected me when I respect them. People act like cops aren't human. Well they are and just like every other job in the world not everyone is perfect and humans make mistakes.
 
I'll give my opinion because I usually do on police stuff on this board so here goes. So forgive the misspellings and ramblings because I'm going on 3 hours of sleep from working last night. I wish I knew how to multi quote on tapatalk.

I like the idea of the cameras. I love my in car camera with the microphone on my belt that comes on every time my lights come on. An easy addition would just be a camera instead of a microphone that automatically comes on when the lights come on.

I love it in court when the dwi arrest comes in wearing a nice suit acting like your a liar and "railroading" them gets shown the video of them being a drunk jackass in front of the whole courtroom. Or when he comes in wanting to plead not guilty with his wife who didn't know that he was out with his girl friend when he was arrested and the attorney pleads you to not mention the girl friend.
Or when the racist parent says that you stopped their perfect angle because they were black or whatever and comes to the office to complain and they play the video and the kid was just being a dumbass. I could go on for hours with example after example. Since the recent events in Ferguson I have had lots of people recording me on thier phone or go pro or whatever. Lots of them make a point to let me know. I just laugh and tell them so are they.

Most officers don't want to railroad anyone, in fact I have better stuff to do than falsely accuse anyone. There are plenty more idiots lined up behind you just waiting to do something stupid to make me do my job. And to think that an officer would just drag someone out of the car and shoot them is crazy. I didn't even look at the video of the guy getting tazed, just don't care enough to watch it, but I NEVER tell someone that I'm getting them out of the car because they have warrants, or are going to jail ect. Why would you want to give them an out by taking off in the car (with kids inside) or giving them time to plan an attack. I ask them to come back because there are problems with the dmv, or I just want to check them to make sure they are ok to drive or whatever.

There is a lot of cop hate on this board and that's cool, but I think that some have an all out to get me attitude. When I was younger I kind of felt that way about the local pd where I grew up. Of course I was into racing, and just being a dumb ass. One thing I always thought was shitty was the way an officer always had backup come like you were a criminal. Well now I know that unless they want to search the car, most of the time the other officer is bored or just curious or just checking on his brother. I had an incident one night that I was on my way home and just happened to stop and check on an Deputy that had a car stopped for speeding, well things went south but could have been a lot worse, later while being interviewed the suspects said they were planning on shooting the deputy until the Trooper pulled up. I had no knowledge of the stop, just driving by and checking.

I understand not trusting "the man", I feel the same way about the federal government, doctors, nurses (except hot ones), car dealers, mechanics, accountants, tire changers, the media ect. (Hopefully that covered everyone here) I listened to a pod cast last night about GMO crops. Scary shit. You think the police is out to get you, look at farmers and the fda.

I say cameras for everyone. I really can't trust any of you people.

End rant. The opinions expressed are solely of the writer and not of police, government or any other agency.
 
I think there are alot of true statements in this thread about the issues with cameras. @2010nctaco, It is nice to hear from someone in law enforcement on the subject. I tend to generally agree, I have been pulled quite a few times and have always been treated with respect. Only once have I had trouble, and I would have liked to have had that on camera.
 
2010nctaco said:
I understand not trusting "the man", I feel the same way about the federal government, doctors, nurses (except hot ones), .
Click to expand...
You trust the hot nurses?
Those are the ones you gotta look out for the most, they'll get you every time!
 
ManglerYJ said:
You are absolutely right that it's a "perceived" problem that is being pushed using tactics of fear, uncertainty and doubt. When Brown was shot, immediately a lot of misinformation was spread about the case by people that weren't there and just wanted to push their own agenda. Not long after, there was a video of a man getting tazed for not getting out of the car when a police officer asked him to

(video here: )

In it, he "feared for his life" being pulled over by a policeman hundreds of miles away from the Brown incident claiming that police were "pulling people out of their cars and shooting them in the street". Even the most racist dirty cop in movies or TV wouldn't just haul someone out in the street in broad daylight and shoot them. Instead, they took on an attitude of arrogance and that arrogance was perceived as non-compliance.
Click to expand...


...........If I'm not mistaken that video is a few years old.
 
ferguson.jpg
 
drkelly said:
Make it happen. I've got nothing to hide. Unlike people with IQ's equal to their belt size, I do what the police officers tell me to do.
Click to expand...
Yep, simple solution: Don't do things that would make the police have to come to your house. If something happens and they DO have to come, act and talk like you have some damned sense.

This is not "big brother". This is no different than the police already coming to your house and hearing/seeing everything that's going on. Only difference is, people's memories are seriously faulty, police included. Eyewitnesses are notoriously inaccurate. As far as things that are said....the camera doesn't lie.
I believe I remember seeing some statistics that showed that where these cameras are used, the complaints and legal issues against the police went down quite a bit....and that was because the vast majority of the police are not corrupt, and are right the majority of the time, and after seeing videos when a citizen made a complaint, this was proven.
 
Pacfanweb said:
Yep, simple solution: Don't do things that would make the police have to come to your house. If something happens and they DO have to come, act and talk like you have some damned sense.

This is not "big brother". This is no different than the police already coming to your house and hearing/seeing everything that's going on. Only difference is, people's memories are seriously faulty, police included. Eyewitnesses are notoriously inaccurate. As far as things that are said....the camera doesn't lie.
I believe I remember seeing some statistics that showed that where these cameras are used, the complaints and legal issues against the police went down quite a bit....and that was because the vast majority of the police are not corrupt, and are right the majority of the time, and after seeing videos when a citizen made a complaint, this was proven.
Click to expand...


I think the issue (supposed) issue is Freedom on Information Act requests.

it essentially could open up a whole slew of pandoras boxes.
For example, a false police report claim just to get the cops to your house...then after the information is filed FOIA request the video of the no charge, then a potential criminal has video casing of your house. Poetntially knows where security system components are located etc. Thats why I said just ammend the law when you inact them.
 
I know there are some cops on here and some people who hate cops on here, but that's life. I don't mind the idea of cameras, but like its been said already, the timing of them needs to be figured out. The cameras in our cars are set to come on when the lights do, but there are no lights on police officers themselves, so where do you draw the line?

There are some shitty cops out there, I don't think anyone can argue against that. I sure as hell am not going to do anything to jeopardize my job as it is how I support my family. Sure, you can say "well why don't you do something else? You don't HAVE to be a cop" but truth be told, I actually have a lot of fun with my job. I work with some great people and have some really great interactions with people. Some are bad, but again, I'm not going out thinking "how can I ruin someone's day and possibly my career?"
 
Ron said:
I think the issue (supposed) issue is Freedom on Information Act requests.

it essentially could open up a whole slew of pandoras boxes.
For example, a false police report claim just to get the cops to your house...then after the information is filed FOIA request the video of the no charge, then a potential criminal has video casing of your house. Poetntially knows where security system components are located etc. Thats why I said just ammend the law when you inact them.
Click to expand...


That's assuming that body cams are shooting in HD and the police officer actually takes a complete tour of the person's home, stopping at each point of entry and the security box. Then, there would be a lag of time between when the footage is uploaded to the server, the perp has to then fill out paperwork and show ID to get the footage, watch it and determine the best approach and commit the crime. Would make for a good movie or an episode of the now cancelled show "Leverage", though.

I do think that cameras will cause more problems than they solve. An alleged "dirty cop" will know he's on camera and conveniently turn the camera off, cover it with his badge or hat (or whatever), muffle the microphone when he says his racial slur, or whatever and it will be back to the old "he said, she said" and trying to fill in the gaps. Or worse, since in court the prosecution has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt a perp's guilt, even with eyewitness testimony, fingerprints of the perp on the murder weapon and an airtight case otherwise, someone being let go because the cop's camera malfunctioned and the defense insist that the cop messed with it themselves to throw a shadow of doubt to the jury. In my opinion, there are already too many things in place that let guilty people off on "technicalities" where the department must follow exacting procedures and the slightest hint of police impropriety sends a guilty person home.

Instead of trying to come up with new laws and more regulations, I'd like to see the Court System enforce the ones they already have instead of letting everything just be a plea deal and let off easy. I want police officers to do the job they are there to do, not have to be a video technician, director or whatever else.
 
Back
Top