People keep proposing naive solutions without realizing cops only use bodycams because they see them as net benefit for them. The technology was around for a long time but only became popular when it was sold as surveillance tool, not accountability tool. If police loses control of the footage they will simply stop using them. If you force them they will protest. Guess who the politicians will support in this fight?
I get the nuance in these replies and not trying to go off topic but general theme is not only do the overseers not care but it’s by design at all levels, from the officer, the equipment supplier, to the courts.
You have had an execution In the street and the authorities will not acknowledge it never mind apologise or make steps to make it right.
Same same. Corruption, submission, fascism.
Well hey, I have a few questions:
- Why do bodycams even have a user-accessible switch? Why isn’t some sort of magnetic or RFID/NFC mechanism that’s only actuated by the docking station back at the precinct?
- Why aren’t they running constantly for as long as they’re on shift?
- Why do police (or any law enforcement mandated to wear body cams) have literally any control or review capability over the cameras and the footage they generate? Why isn’t an entirely discrete and separate agency firewalled off from the cops?
Any police testimony not accompanied by some kind of recording should be inadmissible in court. Likewise any evidence collected while a camera isn’t recording should also be inadmissible. Police have shown again and again that they can’t be trusted and they’re almost always a less reliable witness than some random bystander. It’s about time we actually started treating them that way.
The cameras worked by constantly recording even before the “record” button was pressed, periodically deleting any footage that hadn’t been intentionally recorded. Once the “record” button was pressed by the officer, it would capture the 30 seconds before the button had been pressed, thanks to this method of constantly being on standby.
But it was a hard concept for cops to understand. They weren’t being properly trained on the fact that their own cameras didn’t start recording once they pressed record. Hitting that button saved the 30 seconds prior as well, a neat feature that really bit them in the ass.
Maybe bodycams should randomly record even when the RECORD button isn’t pressed by an officer; and the pre-record time should be random from say 2 minutes to 30 seconds before. And the recording should stop a random 30-60 seconds AFTER they hit ‘STOP’. So they never know when they’re being recorded. If they’re not pulling illegal shit, they shouldn’t have any problem with that, right?
In fact, with storage capabilities nowadays, bodycams should ALWAYS be recording, period. Gotta go to the bathroom? Too damn bad. You’re a public servant. Trust the auditors to redact that if it comes to a court subpoena. You signed up for it. Extraordinary powers come with extraordinary sacrifices.
Jeebus Chripes. No wonder so many people say ACAB.
I think we just need to revise the laws to say that a cop’s testimony doesn’t have any more weight than anyone else’s testimony unless it’s backed up by their bodycam.
Taking cops at their word made sense when we didn’t have this technology. It doesn’t make sense anymore.
I keep getting left off jury duty by honestly answering the question about whether I would give less weight to a cops testimony because they’re a cop.
I suppose if there’s ever a civil jury trial that doesn’t involve a police testimony, I might serve in a jury.
A bit of a shame because I don’t mind being on a jury. I’m not trying to get out of it. I’m just being honest.
I would even go a step further and say that cops’ testimony should not even be accepted if they don’t have bodycam footage to back it up. When you have a camera that’s able to verify anything you need it to, the absence of that verification should be viewed through the lens that you specifically did not want whatever was happening during that time to be recorded.
When we fly we are forced to let some stranger see our junk with the full body scanner
Gotta make sure no one is smuggling a full sized tube of tooth paste up their ass
Seems reasonable given that
Hobesrly with the angles of the body cams I doubt anything would be visible. 100% be audible though.
I assure you
When you step into a full body scanner SOMEBODY gets a look at your shrinky-dink!
Pretty sure they’re talking about the body cams, not the scanner.
People say ACAB because police are class traitors. They violently protect and serve the interest of capital.
¿Por que no los dos?
Make the record button a pause button. Let it stop for five minutes if you’re not moving. Once you walk away, it automatically resumes, independent of time. If you pressed pause while not in front of the shitter, you’re investigated.
They absolutely should always be recording - and frequently backing up data to a server outside their control. Although it probably needs to have judicial oversight for access to days files?
But yeah, what’s the damn point if it’s controlled by the very people the technology is intended to provide oversight for?
The company that sells the cameras and the police buying them don’t want that. The guy who owns the company that makes most body cams advertises that the cameras don’t record more accurately than the human eye. This enables cops to show a blurry 16fps 720p video and go “it looked like he was pulling out a gun”.
That might indeed be the result sometimes :). Doesn’t matter. Since the US seems OK with Amazon making their drivers pee in a bottle and docking them points for gazing away while driving, why not make police submit to full recording like this?
In the same sense, there recently was a disclosure of footages of this kind of camera during a massive protest in france, with thousands on each side. It was very violent, with two protesters into coma if i’m right. Turns out, police forces were told beforehand to “record to prove we’ve done nothing wrong”. The result is hours of footages of insults, illegal use of their gear, call to use lethal weapons, and pleasure of sending people to hospital, because those morons forgot to turn the cameras off when those happened.
