Shouldn’t it be possible to design and produce a body cam that enforces this?
For example, how about the following camera: In the field, it should take two completely separate actions to turn a camera “off” and “off” would actually be “sleep” that would only last a fixed amount of time before the camera automatically wakes up (so no excuses that the officer “forgot” to turn their camera back on). The sleep time could be extended but would require the two separate actions again. Manually waking the camera up would be a separate action/button from the “off” actions/switches (so no excuses that they “thought they were turning it on”).
The device would log time and locations (yeah, let’s add GPS) for all “on/off” actions (so turning your camera off shortly after you receive a call or arrive at a scene would be easy to track).
Full power down (if needed for battery life, etc.) would only be possible using a separate device (e.g. laptop) plugged into the camera using a passworded app (so true power down could be at the end of the day at the station or other location by someone other than the officer).
You could then combine this with laws that require officers to have their cameras on when engaging with the public in their official capacity (with exceptions written into the law for activities that, by law, require protection of privacy). There shouldn’t be any complaints that it would penalize officers who accidentally turned their camera off or “forgot” to turn it back on, and without that excuse, what would the issue be?
I’m sure that the technical aspects of this would be trivial.
It’s the political aspects, the fact that cops don’t want all their actions recorded, that is the problem.
Personally, I think that every cop should be issued a drone or two (for backup and recharging) that follows them wherever they go, records what is happening from a different angle than the middle of their chest (I’ve seen a lot of body cam videos that I had no idea what was going on), and can also be used for the purposes of pursuing someone fleeing, or assisting in seeing around corners or other blind spots.
She is a 26 year veteran and was assigned to train junior police officers. Everybody makes mistakes but this type of gross error leads me to question whether she was sufficiently qualified to do her job.
And what the fuck is going on when three cops are attempting to pull a guy out of his car for something as trivial as an air freshener hanging from a mirror? This is such a monumental cluster fuck. Where is the body cam video that shows what caused this kind of escalation?
If precedent is followed (see The Shooting of Oscar Grant), she will be fired and she will also serve a prison sentence for involuntary manslaughter.
He was pulled over for an air freshener hanging from the mirror. It was the discovery of a warrant for his arrest that prompted officers to take him out of the car and put him in handcuffs, and that’s when the scuffle started.
Body cam video is out there. Look for it on the news or on YouTube.
Okay, I see now. The video I saw on PBS didn’t show him already out of the car about to be handcuffed and then him attempting to flee. Kind of similar to the incident with Jacob Blake in Kenosha.
No, that the cops were racist was the reason for the escalation. The way you word it makes it sound like it was his fault, that being black caused the escalation, rather than their inappropriate response.
According to some recent news reports from around here:
The car was pulled over for expired plates and the air freshener deal. It’s illegal in Minnesota to hang objects from the rear view mirror since it obstructs the driver’s view. Once pulled over they found he had an outstanding warrant for his arrest. Was for carrying a firearm without a license. He failed to show up to court for that thus the warrant.
Upon attempting to handcuff him the scuffle ensued and he jumped back into his car. Officer discharges firearm into him during scuffle. He drives off and crashes down the street.
There is a sufficient array of laws and regulations that an officer, given enough time and an uncomfortable hair up their ass, can always find an excuse to pull someone over. l was on the road between Broadus and Miles City doing around 90 (20 over) when a MT state trooper coming the other way flashed his headlights at me to say “that’s a bit much, dude”, but he just kept going. In other places, I have been stopped for having a tail light out.
The “system” is 100% arbitrary, with the fuzz serving the JJ&E role. It would clearly not work if they had to detain every person seen running afoul of some random statute (even sometimes manufacturing one in their own head), but we seem to have given them a tad too much discretionary authority.
I am compelled to wonder how a gentleman gets cited for carrying a firearm without a license, and ONLY carrying a firearm without a license. Having done my term on a Grand Jury, this sounds like one of those “the officer noticed the odor of marijuana on the suspect and initiated a pat down” scenarios.
I suppose that unless and until that matter is resolved in court, the warrant stands, and a gentleman must abide by its requirements, including showing up in court at the appointed date to address it.
It was stated to me directly by an ADA that cannabis legalization was bad because police would lose the ability to find illegal weapons based on “I smell weed” searches.
No doubt, but a fair number of folks will say this wasn’t a bias incident because “active warrant”, without exploring whether the warrant itself was based on a racially biased search.
It’s clear that the cops don’t see themselves as just police officers; they, in fact, regard themselves as part of an occupying army. No, they won’t come out and tell you that this is how they view themselves, but it’s pretty apparent in how they behave.
When you have police officers pepper spraying a guy in uniform simply because he asserts his freedom of expression to ask why the hell he’s being pulled over, that’s not the behavior of a civil servant; that’s the behavior of a shoot-first, ask-later militia man who views the person in front of him essentially as an insurgent.
This is what decades of militarizing the police - with federal tax dollars - has done to the police. This is probably a partial unintended legacy of things like the bipartisan crime bill of 1994. So perhaps one solution at the federal level is to stop enabling the untrained, small force officers – stop paying for their armor at the federal level at least. And maybe stop paying for it even at the local level, too. Police departments aren’t standing armies, and our citizens aren’t insurgents.