I To me' date=' most important is the audio as far as complaints and weeding out the bad cops.[/quote']

I agree! That the officers safety come first and audio is the most important part, there should be enough on the video to prove what happened, and the suspect knowing it's all has been recorded should be less likely to lie.

I'll present a problem here. Money.

 

How do you expect to pay for these? Some police depts are so strapped for money they haven't given raises in several years. Some have poor equipment already. How do they afford these?

Wouldn't it save money in litigation fees alone ?

Wouldn't it save money in litigation fees alone ?

 

I don't think all police departments are constantly getting sued. It happens but you all make it seem like its a constant thing in all agencies.

They are about $100 each

I don't think all police departments are constantly getting sued. It happens but you all make it seem like its a constant thing in all agencies.

 

But saving one lawsuit would pay for the expense .

I don't think all police departments are constantly getting sued. It happens but you all make it seem like its a constant thing in all agencies.

 

I don't think they are either. But, I can see how, when there's a situation where it's happened once for something bad, it can severely hurt a budget. And guess whose left to pay for it? The officer who pulled something stupid or the collective tax payers?

[/b]

 

Respectfully disagree. If an officer says, "stop resisting" and there's no video, then whose word do you think a Judge is going to take 9/10 times?

 

I don't think people are asking SWAT teams to have a film crew or anything like that.

 

If anything, some of the commentary on this should show that, for whatever reason, the amount of distrust between the public and officers is higher than it should be.

 

I know there are tons of good, no great, officers who do an outstanding job. But there are a handful of incidents that, whether fair or not, shape people's perspective as well.

 

What would you be more inclined to believe you made the right decision on if you were on a jury:

 

A case where someone accuses an officer of unlawful arrest, assault, etc. when there's no video or audio or one where you have a complete audio-video account?

 

 

As for the underlined and knowing the law inside and out, that's why many states have a 'harmful error' standard when adjudicating cases. It's not really like Law & Order, etc. where the bad guy goes and kills tons of people and gets off on some weird technicality.

 

It isn't as if someone thinks, "hey this camera thing would be a good idea" because they want to see law enforcement officers who do their job well crash and burn.

 

I can respect that you disagree but none of your points address what I know to be true. Fiddling with that camera, IE activating it, making sure your mic is on, or trying to get someone to step in to camera view can be an officer safety issue. In a perfect world everything always works perfectly, and you always remember to kick on cameras before you get on scene.... BUT you have hot calls where lives can be on the line, domestic, subject with a gun or you stumble upon something crazy and it's not the top priority. And the thing about these cameras and body mic's , is they run on batteries. They die, and you find yourself fiddling with them which divides your attention and that's a safety issue. Some times you're outta range for your stuff to pick up as well.

 

Like I said, in general they are fine by me, they're another tool for you to utilize, but they aren't the most important thing. However it's great for the guys doing it right and saves them from the citizen whose objective is to ruin a guys career just cause they don't like that officer. As technology evolves it'll be better and more realistic for all officers and where they'll upload via wifi as opposed to USB ports(the only kind I've seen).

I'll present a problem here. Money.

 

How do you expect to pay for these? Some police depts are so strapped for money they haven't given raises in several years. Some have poor equipment already. How do they afford these?

 

Is money an argument against them? Why don't municipalities/counties/states that can afford it adopt them? Or or ask for them, at least? (Considering the federal money sent to departments for drug-war related tasks they could easily do the same for accountability.)

 

I don't think anyone is arguing for a law requiring them.

 

I can respect that you disagree but none of your points address what I know to be true. Fiddling with that camera, IE activating it, making sure your mic is on, or trying to get someone to step in to camera view can be an officer safety issue. In a perfect world everything always works perfectly, and you always remember to kick on cameras before you get on scene.... BUT you have hot calls where lives can be on the line, domestic, subject with a gun or you stumble upon something crazy and it's not the top priority. And the thing about these cameras and body mic's , is they run on batteries. They die, and you find yourself fiddling with them which divides your attention and that's a safety issue. Some times you're outta range for your stuff to pick up as well.

 

Like I said, in general they are fine by me, they're another tool for you to utilize, but they aren't the most important thing. However it's great for the guys doing it right and saves them from the citizen whose objective is to ruin a guys career just cause they don't like that officer. As technology evolves it'll be better and more realistic for all officers and where they'll upload via wifi as opposed to USB ports(the only kind I've seen).

 

Can some of your complaints be alleviated by the policy surrounding them? I don't want some kind of policy that hangs an officer our to dry over something like not having the aimed right. I just think some kind of objective record of an incident might be able to help prevent either egregious abuse or complaint.

A complaint is a complaint, whether it's founded or unfounded. Even if you know you did nothing wrong, you still feel stressed about it.

Is money an argument against them? Why don't municipalities/counties/states that can afford it adopt them? Or or ask for them' date=' at least? (Considering the federal money sent to departments for drug-war related tasks they could easily do the same for accountability.) I don't think anyone is arguing for a law requiring them. Can some of your complaints be alleviated by the policy surrounding them? I don't want some kind of policy that hangs an officer our to dry over something like not having the aimed right. I just think some kind of objective record of an incident might be able to help prevent either egregious abuse or complaint.[/quote']

 

I don't really know about the money issue I just thought I'd throw it in the discussion.

 

Some agencies have little to no money as it is now.

I am not a fan of this practice. It reeks of Big Brother watching over every move a police officer makes. Why don't we just fire all police officers and build some Robocops?!

I am not a fan of this practice. It reeks of Big Brother watching over every move a police officer makes. Why don't we just fire all police officers and build some Robocops?!

 

I agree 100%!

I have been thinking of how to communicate my thoughts best and it has nothing to do with "bad cops."

 

How about this, police officers by nature are huge risk takers. The risks they take protect others in many ways and some of the best police officers I had the honor to work with were big risk takers. However, strap a camera to them 24 hours a day and it won't be long before they take only the smallest and most calculated risks.

 

Instead of bombarding me with more questions take some time to think about police officers, the many jobs they do, all the associated risks, and what the implications may be if police officers are rarely willing to do anything risky.

I can respect that you disagree but none of your points address what I know to be true. Fiddling with that camera, IE activating it, making sure your mic is on, or trying to get someone to step in to camera view can be an officer safety issue. In a perfect world everything always works perfectly, and you always remember to kick on cameras before you get on scene.... BUT you have hot calls where lives can be on the line, domestic, subject with a gun or you stumble upon something crazy and it's not the top priority. And the thing about these cameras and body mic's , is they run on batteries. They die, and you find yourself fiddling with them which divides your attention and that's a safety issue. Some times you're outta range for your stuff to pick up as well.

 

Like I said, in general they are fine by me, they're another tool for you to utilize, but they aren't the most important thing. However it's great for the guys doing it right and saves them from the citizen whose objective is to ruin a guys career just cause they don't like that officer. As technology evolves it'll be better and more realistic for all officers and where they'll upload via wifi as opposed to USB ports(the only kind I've seen).

 

Something I probably should have been more clear about was that I thought about the implementation period for them being a process that would probably take place over a decade-plus.

I am not a fan of this practice. It reeks of Big Brother watching over every move a police officer makes. Why don't we just fire all police officers and build some Robocops?!

 

That's what's basically happening. Look at some of the things being built by Boston Dynamics right now.

 

Robotic "insects" and "hummingbirds" that can be used as surveillance drones, a "wildcat" that can run up to 16 miles per hour for "search and rescue" missions.

 

Obviously these are a way from implementation, but yea... the Robocop thing is probably more realistic than you might think.