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Does anyone think this will really happen?

amlevin

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http://www.mynorthwest.com/category...1007/Seattle-police-chief-wants-body-cameras/

Seattle police officers could one day be wearing tiny video cameras on their lapel or on their ear.

It's one of the ideas Seattle Police Chief John Diaz is exploring as a way to make his department more transparent, following recent incidents that have raised concerns about officers use of excessive force.

Notice in the article how the Union claims this will have to be negotiated in the contract. So who really does run our PD's, the Chief and the City, or the Union?


BTW, a body cam isn't a bad idea for those who Openly Carry, especially if part of a group and there are multiple cameras capturing any "contact" with police. Even better than just audio.
 

FMCDH

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I think its inevitable, but not necessarily imminent. The real question is not IF it will happen, its when, and who will be accountable for maintaining and archiving the footage for FOIA requests. Unless you have an independent body in charge of that portion, "ops we lost it/cant find it" will still be an answer when the recording is less than flattering for the officer(s) actions.
 

amlevin

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I think its inevitable, but not necessarily imminent. The real question is not IF it will happen, its when, and who will be accountable for maintaining and archiving the footage for FOIA requests. Unless you have an independent body in charge of that portion, "ops we lost it/cant find it" will still be an answer when the recording is less than flattering for the officer(s) actions.

Would be nice if the technology develops to the point where these cameras transmit all their info in real time to a central server as well as maintain the info in local memory. This would make it more difficult to tamper with it. 911 recordings seem to be pretty free of tampering, at least so far.
 

Squeak

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I think its inevitable, but not necessarily imminent. The real question is not IF it will happen, its when, and who will be accountable for maintaining and archiving the footage for FOIA requests. Unless you have an independent body in charge of that portion, "ops we lost it/cant find it" will still be an answer when the recording is less than flattering for the officer(s) actions.

They don't even say 'OOPS!' anymore.
 

Lurkus Maximus

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Would be nice if the technology develops to the point where these cameras transmit all their info in real time to a central server as well as maintain the info in local memory. This would make it more difficult to tamper with it. 911 recordings seem to be pretty free of tampering, at least so far.

Here's one made by Taser with some evidence control:

http://www.taser.com/products/law/Pages/TASERAXON.aspx

Excerpt:
SYNAPSE ETM - Evidence Transfer Manager

The SYNAPSE ETM™ Evidence Transfer Manager is a docking station that simultaneously recharges the AXON Tactical Computer (ATC) and uploads all data captured from the officer’s point-of-view during his/her shift to EVIDENCE.COM. SYNAPSE ETM™ ensures that evidence handling is completely secured and untainted.
 

TechnoWeenie

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I think its inevitable, but not necessarily imminent. The real question is not IF it will happen, its when, and who will be accountable for maintaining and archiving the footage for FOIA requests. Unless you have an independent body in charge of that portion, "ops we lost it/cant find it" will still be an answer when the recording is less than flattering for the officer(s) actions.

'The video recording device was rendered inoperative due to the violent assault on this officer that took place'
 

Tomas

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Some Seattle PD officers were wearing cameras made by http://www.vievu.com/ a while back, testing them out.

It is still doubtful that the union will take LEO accountability lying down, though. :(

One of the "selling points" some are using is the "dual use" ability of these cameras as dash cam and body cam, but you KNOW that if things are getting hairy they will forget the camera on the dash, and we'll have no better than what we have now.

Even if they wear a cam their full shift - how many times do you think we would hear "I forgot to turn the camera on?"
 

END_THE_FED

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Would be nice if the technology develops to the point where these cameras transmit all their info in real time to a central server as well as maintain the info in local memory. This would make it more difficult to tamper with it. 911 recordings seem to be pretty free of tampering, at least so far.



Also once uploaded to the server it should instantly be made available to everyone via public website. You click on a date and it will have a list of all officers that were working that day, you click an officers name and the videos are all there for the whole shift broken up to one hour segments.
 

tbrenke

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if the upload is real time, how long would it take for some programmer to tap that information and update a realtime map of there locations? bad idea.
 

FMCDH

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if the upload is real time, how long would it take for some programmer to tap that information and update a realtime map of there locations? bad idea.

Real time transmission only for the purpose of archiving isn't really fees-able anyway due to the various environmental and situational circumstances that would degrade the signal beyond usability in a court of law. Local storage on a sealed system that the individual officer cannot access would be the way to go to keep the usability high.

For these types of units, transmitting would only be used for real time incident updating to a command center or 911 dispatch, much as they are used by some of our troops.
 

marshaul

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We should require police to record everything. It should get to the point where any police testimony not supported by audio/video because the recorder was conveniently "not turned on" is considered tantamount to hearsay.

My fantasy courtroom encounter:

Judge: "Officer, do you really expect anyone in this courtroom to believe one word you have to say, in light of the fact that you are unable to provide corroborating video evidence as is standard for and expected of someone in your line of employ?"

Cop: "Yes."

Judge: "Well, tough. Case dismissed."
 
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killchain

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We should require police to record everything. It should get to the point where any police testimony not supported by audio/video because the recorder was conveniently "not turned on" is considered tantamount to hearsay.

My fantasy courtroom encounter:

Judge: "Officer, do you really expect anyone in this courtroom to believe one word you have to say, in light of the fact that you are unable to provide corroborating video evidence as is standard for and expected of someone in your line of employ?"

Cop: "Yes."

Judge: "Well, tough. Case dismissed."

What about civilians?

Let's throw their testimonies out in court because it wasn't recorded.

That idea is silly.
 

marshaul

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What about civilians?

Let's throw their testimonies out in court because it wasn't recorded.

That idea is silly.

It is silly to expect officers to bring recording devices into encounters they have plenty of training and equipment to prepare for, on the job, and then to hold them accountable when those recordings conveniently disappear and are unable to corroborate oral testimony which directly contradicts the defendants'?

Comparing cops to citizens in this context is silly.

Think about it like this:

Is it reasonable to expect police to carry recorders, the same as we expect them to carry identification? I don't see why not.

Assuming police are, then, expected to carry and use recorders, should the convenient absence, in cases of contested testimony, of those recordings not be viewed as suspicious? Of course it is suspicious.

I'm not talking exclusionary rule status, I'm just saying, it is suspicious to the point that I would consider it prima facie evidence that a cop is lying, if a recording which was made (or should have been made) is conveniently absent to corroborate his testimony.
 
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Citizen

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SNIP I'm not talking exclusionary rule status, I'm just saying, it is suspicious to the point that I would consider it prima facie evidence that a cop is lying, if a recording which was made (or should have been made) is conveniently absent to corroborate his testimony.

An appellate court justice in the South (Alabama? Mississippi?) took notice of the phenomena of conveniently missing recordings in his dissent last year. Conveniently missing recordings or "technical problems" are becoming so common even judges are noticing.
 

amlevin

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An appellate court justice in the South (Alabama? Mississippi?) took notice of the phenomena of conveniently missing recordings in his dissent last year. Conveniently missing recordings or "technical problems" are becoming so common even judges are noticing.

Also included in the "tech problems" fold should be the instances where the patrol car is conveniently parked in such a manner that the video only records highway traffic or roadside foliage while the officer keeps hollering into his body mic "Stop Resisting". All along he's beating the crap out of the motorist.

FWIW, the shooting of John T. Williams in Seattle took place completely out of camera view. Maybe it's time to have multiple cameras in order to record activity on all four sides of a patrol car.

For those police officers that might complain, remember, it could also vindicate their actions as well if there's conflicting testamony. That is unless they really ARE looking for an area out of the camera view to conduct their "interview".
 
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Metalhead47

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Also included in the "tech problems" fold should be the instances where the patrol car is conveniently parked in such a manner that the video only records highway traffic or roadside foliage while the officer keeps hollering into his body mic "Stop Resisting". All along he's beating the crap out of the motorist.

FWIW, the shooting of John T. Williams in Seattle took place completely out of camera view. Maybe it's time to have multiple cameras in order to record activity on all four sides of a patrol car.

For those police officers that might complain, remember, it could also vindicate their actions as well if there's conflicting testamony. That is unless they really ARE looking for an area out of the camera view to conduct their "interview".

+1.

As someone who spends most of their day constantly monitored by several cameras, personally I welcome them. I'm not generally in the habit of blatantly doing things at work I know I ought not do, so I realize there's a much better chance after an incident that those cameras will be my friends and not my enemies. And so far that's been correct. I would *think* good, honest cops out to do their best would have a similar attitude.

As a citizen, I'd have no problem with more cameras on police cars either. They'd (generally) only be recording outdoors, which is a public area. The comment was made above about body cams being an invasion of privacy for the citizen, since the inside of your home, etc, would potentially be on display, ESPECIALLY with any kind of "public access" centralized storage. That would also be a very easy way for nefarious types to "case the joint" and looks for juicy targets to rob, especially if they know the resident just got hauled off to jail.
 
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