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Watching The Watchers
Recent events in Ferguson, Missouri have drawn a great deal of attention to the issue of police brutality. One idea to address the problem involves equipping all police officers on patrol with body-worn cameras, which people apparently call BWCs. It is beyond me how people are even debating this.
Study after study suggests that cops behave better when they wear BWCs. Compared to cops who wear BWCs, cops who do not wear BWCs are involved in many more use-of-force incidents and receive far more complaints. When two jurisdictions right here in Arizona, Mesa and Phoenix, had some of their officers wear BWCs, things were no different.
In Mesa, there were 40 percent fewer total complaints and 75 percent fewer use of force complaints for officers with cameras. In Phoenix, one officer was fired after someone filed a complaint. The department reviewed footage from the incident along with video from prior shifts and found repeated instances of verbal abuse, profanity, and threats from the officer. He would probably still be terrorizing the public had there not been video to back up that complaint.
On top of that, there is a real possibility that BWCs aid legitimate law enforcement while discouraging meritless litigation against officers. A defendant whose crime was captured on video is probably going to be more likely to plead. A would-be police brutality plaintiff is probably going to be discouraged by a video showing no brutality. Video is neither pro-defendant nor pro-state. It is pro-truth, and I cannot imagine why any honest prosecutor or police officer would have a problem with there being more of it.
So why would anyone oppose BWCs? As far as I can tell, pretty much all of the opposition falls into one of two groups, one needlessly fixated on privacy and the other generally resistant to police accountability altogether.
If anything, I imagine the privacy of the public will be promoted by the use of BWCs. I have had more clients than I can count claim that officers entered their homes, searched their cars, and looked through their belongings without asking. Had the officers been wearing BWCs, I would have been able to prove it.
On top of that, arguments about the effect of videotaping on domestic violence or rape victims, the official mascots of power-hungry law and order folks everywhere, all but ignore reality. Victims’ interviews are already recorded more often than not, and police frequently take their pictures as well. All of that, along with all sorts of other personal information, is then disclosed to the defense. Any damage to the victims is already mitigated by various rules governing redaction and disclosure. It is a non-issue that would at most require a little tweaking of the existing rules should BWCs become commonplace.
Finally, the no-accountability group seems spearheaded by police unions, who worry that the cameras will be used to conduct workforce surveillance. Great, I say. When we give the sort of incredible power we do to armed individuals among us, they need to be monitored.
Comments from Jeff Roorda, a Democrat in Missouri’s House of Representatives and vice president of a police charity supporting the officer who killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, pretty much sum up the hypocrisy and desire to shirk police accountability that seem to define BWC opposition from the law enforcement crowd:
Instead of the cameras being there to protect the officers, they get disciplined for petty stuff constantly — for violating the uniform code, or rolling through a stop sign for an urgent call, or for not turning the camera on,” Roorda said. “That’s one of the hottest issues for my guys. They’re tired of the nitpicking, and that’s what the cameras have been used to do.
“Or for killing young black men for no reason,” I think he forgot to include.
Basically, the powerful people who cite us for violating all sorts of silly codes, for rolling through stop signs when we think it is important, and for not reporting as we should are upset that someone is watching them now too. They are the nitpickers, not the nitpickees, according to Roorda. That also happens to be exactly that sort of mentality that makes BWCs so important.
Filed under: Police · Tags: body, brutality, BWC, camera, complaints, cops, dash cam, excessive force, internal affairs, mesa, officer, phoenix, Police, Rialto, studies, video, worn
3 Responses to "Watching The Watchers"
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Don’t forget the polar bears.
I was hoping these comments were joking around, but the more I read them, the more apparent it becomes. First, what more sorts of power are you suggesting our police are given? The examples you give are far too broad to even be together. I am guessing all three of us would have won the lottery twice before that scenario were to actually take place.
The real danger of someone with a warrant FOR committing a violent crime is very true, as his warrant would show, that person is wanted to stand before a judge for that accusation.
The stop signs and tags, are city ordinances and state statutes, and there is even debate on whether or not those qualify enough for legitimate blue light activation.
I have found that whenever a person, or persons, are in favor of violating, or entrenching another(s) Constitutional, or any other right, it is only to enlarge or expand their own rights at cost of the others.
The Constitution and everything that comes with it are here to protect all of us. Police and all government employees, etc. have to take oaths to uphold and protect our rights in order to do their jobs.
As for the cameras, if it part of their job, wear the camera. There are a couple of hypocrisy points I do see. First is, the government gives the people no say as to cameras put up, for whatever reason, that monitor a lot of both public and privately owned property and thoroughfares , and the recordings would be used against it’s own citizens without a second thought in any kind of prosecution even for a civil offense. Why then, is it a hard concept to grasp, that the citizens that police are supposed to be protecting, are asked to wear cameras that hold responsible both them, and the citizens they come into contact with?
It makes me think of my favorite line from police,”if you are not doing anything wrong, you shouldn’t be worried, or have anything to hide, right?” There are rules, even for police, but even those have been circumvented by,”immunity”, which is tolerated to a point, but I have yet to find it mentioned anywhere in our Constitution. It does however, make a point to if anyone under the color of law, violates anyones civil rights, that they are entitled to compensation, and the official be held responsible. Disturbingly enough, there are even articles about how it is financially more sound to just violate their rights, even killing someone, because the legal and financial accountability placed on them is far less if the ones whose right they are violating is dead, as compared to being held accountable in a court.
It is a very sad and scary time right now, and to joke about, or ignore it, is just giving your silent consent to their actions.
Shorter Jeff Coorda: Waaaah! Doing a job right is so hard!
I find it amusing when police complain about nitpicking, considering the kinds of things they ding people for: Rolling through stop signs when there’s no conflicting traffic, cracked windshield, burned out tail light, failure to affix tax stickers, sloppy parking, not identifying yourself, standing around on the sidewalk too long…
But they’re keeping us safe! If we don’t give them all sorts of powers, it will be carnage on the street as people with warrants for violent crimes who won’t provide ID to officers blow through every stop sign with no visibility through their cracked windshields and the families in minivans behind them ram into them because of their broken tail lights. Think about the children!