Yep. I rushed to unfair judgement.
And this is a problem because…?
Regards,
Shodan
Because cops should be pushing each other to behave all the time, and not only when they are being recorded?
15 minutes is not a very long time to wait for a pizza to be delivered or for a prescription to be filled. Are you seriously suggesting it’s not a long time to leave someone lying on the ground while they bleed from a gunshot wound?
Hey, there’s one. Who also shot an unarmed civilian in unclear circumstances which only after his firing turned out to be self-defense. Proportionality is not a given here, is it? Meanwhile, just this week there was pretty much a new case of serious police misconduct - the kind which injures, maims, or kills someone, while permanently destroying any faith they have in the police - almost every day in this thread. Congrats, you found one good cop who lost his job unjustly. Well done. I don’t care. Find a few hundred more, and we can talk about how “unfair” people are to the police.
Were they acting like shitbags? Look, this really isn’t hard. We don’t want body cams for their own sake, we want them so that there’s some accountability. And here, we see the police acting in a pretty damn objectionable way, so we cry foul. Mission fucking accomplished.
“We want our workers to push each other to behave appropriately. One worker sees his boss coming and says, ‘Do your jobs right, boss is coming’, and that’s somehow a problem?!”
Yeah. Yeah, it is, because they should always be doing their jobs right, and the fact that they have a body cam or the boss is coming shouldn’t be necessary. They shouldn’t need to worry about the boss coming; they should always be doing their jobs right. They shouldn’t need to worry about the body cams, they should always be acting on their best behavior. The fact that this kind of reminder is needed from people with a license to use deadly force if they feel threatened and an inherent assumption of truth above and beyond the civilian assumption of innocence is, at best, disturbing.
Kind of an anecdote, and one of the reasons why I do not eat out, ever… Working in some of the crappier restaurants I have worked in, whenever the health department would show up, everyone would start signalling to each other, like we were drug dealers and the cops were showing up.
“Health department’s here, put on your gloves, wash your hands, check your dates…” and so on.
Wouldn’t you rather that a restaurant actually follow the health department guidelines all the time, rather than just when they are coming in?
I’m all for body cameras but I can’t get very worked up when the system is new and cops are reminding each other of the new reality. Maybe it’s reminding good cops not to swear or scratch their balls and maybe simultaneously warning the jerks not to act like jerks. As the cameras become more commonplace, these reminders won’t be needed and cops will start not scratching their balls or acting like jerks as a habit.
QFT
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said this at work! Only to be looked at like I have two heads! It seems to me that there is a vast segment of the population who feel that their job is an inconvenience in their life - something that needs to be gotten through with the least amount of effort expended. apparently some cops also have this attitude.
It’s not alright! DO YOUR JOB! DO IT LIKE IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE DONE! DONT CUT CORNERS! DONT DO IT ONE WAY WHEN THE BOSS ISN’T LOOKING AND ANOTHER WHEN SHE IS!
Life would be so much better if we all acted like we were in this together!
mc
I can see the newness as a mitigating factor too. I wasn’t aware, when I posted the OP, that the system was new to the department.
[QUOTE=k9bfriender]
It is my understanding that the police cam footage is not generally for public consumption, and that it is only released to the public when there is something particularly controversial in the recording. Are the PDs releasing video of cops in the bathroom?
[/QUOTE]
I’m unaware of any such videos that have been released, though I wouldn’t be surprised if some have. The point is that cops worry about stuff like that or other stuff that might be recorded and released because there was an incident right afterward. We’ve had a few cases where people (lawyers mainly) requested the video an hour before and after an incident. Now, usually, that video wouldn’t be released to the public, but you can see how someone might be uncomfortable with being caught zipping up or picking their nose or something, let alone if they swore, made sexist or racist remarks or, well, did something illegal or immoral while the camera was rolling…just human nature to be worried about stuff like that.
BTW, this isn’t limited to the police. Upthread someone mentioned cameras in the work place. All our facilities have cameras going 24/7, especially in the public areas but also in a lot of employee areas, especially those that deal with the public or handle cash or other funds. A lot of employees are worried about those cameras and complain about them quite a bit, and we get a lot of those complaints…everything from women worried that someone could look down their shirt or see them bending over to adjust their shoes or whatever to people worried their supervisors are spying on them. Then there are the worries about who has access to the video and whether the video could or would be released to the public (and my own personal issues on how long we retain it, how secure that retention has to be, whether or not it needs a chain of custody, and who pays for all this stuff). The fire department and public works folks are in similar boats as some of their vehicles are starting to get cameras in them as well, so this isn’t just police. Heck, our elected officials often remind each other that the cameras are rolling, since we stream the high-level meetings to the web.
So, the cops are warning one another.
Need to remember that if I’m ever arrested for flashing my headlights, warning other motorists about the upcoming speed trap.
Got it. Even a cop who is falsely accused gets no sympathy. How about if he gets shot by some BLM terrorist? Still don’t care?
No, they weren’t.
At least we understand your mission in all this. You want to complain about everything the cops do, or don’t do, or might do if they didn’t know better, or not do.
Think of the warnings about being recorded as the moral equivalent of the Miranda warnings. “You have the right to remain silent. If you give up that right, anything you say will be misconstrued and used against you in the court of Internet opinion. You will be considered guilty until proven innocent, and, if you are finally proven to have done nothing wrong, a certain kind of person will not care about your losing your job. And you have the right to be called a shitbag because the ambulance didn’t show up fast enough.”
Regards,
Shodan
Again, though, isn’t that an argument for body cameras?
Not to mention that, in most of the body-cam setups I’ve seen, the officer themselves have to activate (and deactive) the cameras. They’ve generally got policies along the lines of “turn it on at the start of an interaction with a member of the public, and turn it off afterwards” (probably in a lot of cases with exceptions for things like interviewing victims or recording the inside of private residences), so the only way a bathroom break would get recorded is if the officer himself forget and left it running after his last interaction, or intentionally turned it on to record the giant deuce he just dropped.
For example, here is SLC PD’s body-cam policy:
[QUOTE=SLC PD]
III-535 BODY WORN CAMERAS
Body Worn Camera systems (BWC) will be issued to officers whose primary duties include responding to calls for service, traffic enforcement, and members of SWAT, Public Order and other units as determined by the department.
Only those officers who have completed approved training will be allowed to operate the BWC. It is the responsibility of those officers who have been issued a BWC, to be trained as soon as practical and to stay proficient in any training update or extended training as needed. This will be coordinated through the training unit, working with the Body Camera System Administrator.
Officers who have been issued the BWC shall wear it at all times the officer may become involved in an enforcement encounter, including secondary employment, and comply with all Utah laws governing the use of Body Worn Cameras A Law enforcement encounter means any of the following, but is not limited to:
- An enforcement stop
- A dispatched call
- A field interrogation or interview
- Use of force
- Execution of a warrant
- A traffic stop, including a traffic violation, stranded motorist assistance, and any crime interdictions stop
Body Worn Camera Recordings
The BWC is utilized to record law enforcement encounters, as defined above and to include but not be limited to other examples of events such as; traffic stops; pursuits; vehicle searches; confrontational citizen contacts; use of force situations; statements made by subjects, victims, and witnesses, advising an individual of his or her Miranda rights, interrogations, and arrest checks done by supervisors.
In order to capture the above types of contacts and events, officers wearing a camera shall activate the BWC whenever they interact with the public and/or at the time dispatched to a call for service. A best practice for activation would be turning on the camera after acknowledgement of acceptance of a call.
An officer who is found to have purposely failed to activate the BWC during an interaction with a member of the public, or who has a pattern of not recording interactions with the public will be subject to disciplinary action.
[/QUOTE]
It goes on for several pages, covering things like Exceptions to Recording Requirement, Camera Use Procedures, Prohibited Body Worn Camera Recordings, Reporting and Documentation, Body Worn Cameras in Private Residences, Review of Body Worn Camera Media, Release of Body Worn Camera Media to Third Parties, and Copies of Video.
Wait, how does this work:
[Quote=XT]
in fact, I’ve seen instances where police officers had their cameras on while going to the bathroom or other fairly embarrassing things.
[/quote]
[Quote=k9bfriender]
It is my understanding that the police cam footage is not generally for public consumption, and that it is only released to the public when there is something particularly controversial in the recording. Are the PDs releasing video of cops in the bathroom?
[/quote]
Are you saying you get to see unreleased body cam footage? I don’t think the few people who get that access should be a terrible weight upon officers’ ability to do their job.
It’s both a technical and sensitive job to go into the system, review the video, extract it and put it into a format to be given to someone doing a request. Generally, it’s all automatic (wrt the daily use of the system, not extraction), with someone (a human) reviewing it only if there is an incident, but IT is generally involved at some level with this processes, especially when we were initially implementing it.
It’s not a terrible weight on the officers…as I’ve said repeatedly, it’s something that they worry about (among other things). Also, if someone requests the video, and if they release it to the internet (like, oh, say whoever released the video in the OP, for instance), then it’s out there for everyone to see. Think about it in your own terms. If we put a camera on you all day every day you were at work. And if, oh, say I was the one who would look at that video if there was a request. Would you be comfortable with it even if you knew that I would PROBABLY be the only one to review it (or someone else senior enough in IT or someone from the state police senior enough or…well, that’s good enough)? What would your comfort level be if there was the potential that, an hour before and after some random event that someone could watch the video then? Would you appreciate it if one of your cow-orkers warned you that your camera was still on when you were on the way to the john or adjusting your fly? Or would you be totally good with that if it was only I who would see you in those embarrassing moments…in theory?
I can’t think of a time, while having direct contact with clients, that I would be all that worried about it being reviewed - despite the occasional fly adjustment. In the grand scheme of police-civilian relations such a concern is really so damn miniscule I have a hard time taking it seriously.
Lot’s of things are minuscule and hard to take seriously, but real life is like that. I’m not saying these things to say we shouldn’t have the cameras, and most police that I know aren’t either. But it’s a serious concern that real people have. As I said, it’s not limited to just the police, either…I heard similar complaints from a lot of sources. This is especially the case when a new system is put in. Eventually, people get used to it, though as I mentioned briefly earlier I still hear elected officials tell each other the cameras are on or make mention of them fairly often, and some of those systems have been in operation for years. I think it’s a pretty natural human response. YMMV, as might the OPs.
Not theory, reality. I have spent most of my working years working under the unbliking eye of cameras. I didn’t have to wear one myself, but every single action that I took (outside the bathroom) was documented for anyone at all (and I have no idea who all had access to the camera footage). Should this have bothered me? I didn’t really think so at the time. In some way, I appreciated it, because it meant that other employees would be held to the same standard that I hold myself to in the work place.
As far as really private stuff, like going to the bathroom, that’s a bit different, and if someone were to notice that your camera is on on your way to relive yourself, they may have reason to mention it. “You’re hot!” seems as though it might be a common phrase outside (or inside) precinct bathrooms.
And if they really can’t handle the pressure, they can always quit and find another line of work that is not so demanding.
It’s not the greatest that they have to remind people, but, if they always have to record, then it doesn’t really matter. We only need to worry if we see stuff not on camera.
As for cops being worried about criticism from the public, I can only say “Toughen up, snowflakes.” You are given power, which means responsibility. Other professions are filmed all the time, too. If the guy at Walmart can live up to standards, so can you.