Americans massively back call for more police body camera tech In the constantly divided United States, an unusual consensus has arrived in the form of police body cameras. According to a survey out this week, an extraordinary 92 per cent of the population support a requirement for police to wear body cameras to record actions and interactions. This being America, of course, some of the …
Right up until you live there, which you don't. The part about jolly ol' not speaking German for the last hundred years isn't lost on this reality show cast member. Looking over the leadership qualities displayed on that side of the pond it appears the competent ones have been in the colonies for centuries. Pip pip
Mostly it depends on what "war" is.
Actual officer deaths due to firearms, for instance, are lower than ever -- after a post-Prohibition high point in the mid-1970s, the trend has been for fewer and fewer officers killed. 2015 looks set to be one of the safest years yet for police officers.
However, if "war" is taken to mean "we're taking a critical look at police performance" then yes, the public are more critical of police this year than they were last year.
"Actual officer deaths due to firearms, for instance, are lower than ever -- after a post-Prohibition high point in the mid-1970s, the trend has been for fewer and fewer officers killed. 2015 looks set to be one of the safest years yet for police officers."
Goddamit you're won of those intellectual types who bring those facts to an argument.
Ought to be a law agin it.
Signed
A Hillbilly.
1. "Those willing and unwilling to increase taxes also breaks fairly predictably along party political lines, with 65 per cent of Democrats willing to pay more, as opposed to 46 per cent of Republicans. But even so, the number is significant."
Let me fix this for you: "with 65 percent of Democrats willing to have others pay more taxes ...".
In the US of A, some 50% of working-age adults pay nil in taxes and most of them collect at least some kind of government welfare, effectively making their contribution negative. Coincidentally, about 50% of the working-age population thinks the level of taxation is OK as is or that the "rich" don't pay enough.
I popped in here for some geek reading and may I say I absolutely love the undertones of your article. Tech skills too thin and you switched to "social justice" writing?
2. "The divide falls along depressingly obvious racial lines"
A big "up yours" for this one statement as well! This kind of statement is what's really depressing.
Oh, and yes, I am overtaxed but I'd volunteer to buy a body cam for every police officer and every govt official I encounter. Video recordings can be a wonderful tool for keeping the civil "servants" both civil and safe.
"In the US of A, some 50% of working-age adults pay nil in taxes and most of them collect at least some kind of government welfare, effectively making their contribution negative. Coincidentally, about 50% of the working-age population thinks the level of taxation is OK as is or that the "rich" don't pay enough."
No. Even Mitt Romney doesn't agree with you. He claimed that the real figure was 47%, and that's of *all* Americans, not just working-age ones. He includes children and pensioners in that figure, as well as the unemployed and those in jobs that pay so little they don't qualify to pay income taxes.
And nobody pays nil in taxes. You have heard of sales tax, right? Who pays that? Hint: everyone.
"2. "The divide falls along depressingly obvious racial lines"
A big "up yours" for this one statement as well! This kind of statement is what's really depressing."
Idiot. If you deny that there is some kind of bias in the way that different racial groups are treated by the police you have to be some kind of moron. The stats on this are very clear.
> Cops know where to look to find most of the trouble.
It's curious, they go looking for trouble and, even if there wasn't any to start with, they seem to manage to find some.
"And so are the stats on black vs white violent crimes."
Do blacks commit more crime than whites? Yes, but not nearly so much more when corrected for socio-economic status. So why, you might be able to answer, are they statistically sent to prison for longer than whites, for the same crimes?
Not going to quote old Trumper, are you?
IRL most crimes perpetrated on a racial group are committed by members of that racial group.
IOW most crimes committed on White people are committed by White people, the same for black, hispanic and other ethnic groups.
> some feel they will protect citizens more and some feel they will protect police officers more
Um, I thought the point was they'll protect both by having an honest trustworthy account of what happened. (unless of course they're turned off or "broken")
As it is, you're depending on the word of ether some Sheriff Bluford numpty or some hoodlum numpty, both of which have shown they can't be trusted.
It'll be especially useful with the tons of bogus "resisting arrest" charges where the bloke did nothing but ask what he's being arrested for, where the jury can finally see he never raised his voice or his hand to the cop.
And once the boys in blue realize a "broken" camera means they're under a hell of a lot more suspicion, they'll take care of the things and not accept one that doesn't work.
This is a good example of the usual problem in North American politics in a nutshell:
Group A says body cams will protect the police from dangerous members of the public.
Group B says body cams will protect the public from rogue members of the police.
Neither side stops to wonder that maybe both can be true.
Well, I don't really know what this means. Does this mean that cops are now considered authoritarian abusive bully assholes and it's best to steer well clear of them? Then yes, it's a war on cops.
I feel most cops are "good cops" but now I wouldn't ask one for help or directions or anything, unless my life was in serious danger and I had no choice.
I remember being taught as a kid "if you're lost or in trouble, go to nice Mr. Policeman and he'll help" and now my friends teach their kids "stay the hell away from the cops if you know what's good for ya"
There are even news articles on how to best avoid the police: http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2013/01/03/stop_and_frisk_florida_here_s_how_to_avoid_consensual_police_encounters.html
"stay the hell away from the cops if you know what's good for ya"
This. 1000x this. Pitiful really, "Serve and Protect" has become "Arrest and Incarcerate".
For a really long-winded version of why, read the ebook "Arrest-Proof Yourself" by Dale Carson. (Look around - a free PDF is available.) 380 pages when 50 probably would have sufficed, but it will give you really great insight into what the US police force has turned into these days, and why you want to limit your contact with them at all costs.
Thanks for the tip; it looks like an interesting book, and I look forward to reading more of it. A couple of quick samples suggest what I suspect others already have pointed out. If you are stopped by a police officer, politeness, a show of respect for the officer (whether or not honest), and compliance with requests and orders is prudent behavior, and likely to bring much better results than the alternatives, even for those who were driving/walking while black/hispanic. The time to protest police misconduct usually is not when it is occurring, and the person to whom the complaint should be given almost never is the officer involved.
That said, body cameras in use are likely to mitigate bad behavior on both sides of a police/citizen encounter. The downside is that a great many police visits are for domestic disagreements that both participants are likely to feel embarrassment over and think of as a privacy invasion. The solution might be for the cameras to run all the time unless all those involved in an encounter (including the police officer) agree that it can be turned off for privacy reasons. Storage for the camera to hold everything on a shift, and to retain a copy of it for a reasonable period, is cheap enough in relation to other police equipment and operations that it should not be an impediment.
It also is worth mentioning that the situations of most interest are those which include violence and perhaps a shooting or forcible arrest. In those, even with the body cameras running, the capture is likely to be ambiguous and incomplete, and outside observers with cell phones are likely to contribute to a better understanding than any one source would provide.
No wonder the USA police refer to the general public as "civilians", especially now that police is the USA are basically a series of paramilitary forces.
Exactly!
I've said the same myself. When you have a police force referring to the general public as 'civilians', it just emphasizes that they have totally forgotten that they are, themselves, also citizens, and have no special rights under the law.
In America - as in the UK and other major democracies - policing is by consent of the populous. It seems the American Rozzers just forget this a bit more frequently than they do elsewhere.
Officers who don't have camera footage when they are accused of wrongdoing should be held accountable if that keeps happening. Once or twice is a coincidence or bad luck, when it keeps happening they should lose the benefit of the doubt.
The public or at least the lawyers representing those who accuse the police of wrongdoing should have the ability to view body cam video and audio. If it is up to the police to choose if/when it can be released, it will only ever be released when it exonerates them.
Ownership, control, and release authority of the footage is probably the biggest issue with law enforcement field video (dash cams and body cams). Presently, in most jurisdictions, the field video is owned and controlled by the police department. Footage that doesn't fully support or exonerate a LEO's actions won't be released except by court order. I'm certain the police unions will scream bloody murder if the footage is held by an outside organization not under the direct control of the law enforcement agency.
> Presently, in most jurisdictions, the field video is owned and controlled by the police department.
At least this is one thing that Britain's Surveillance State got right: If you appear on CCTV or other such video footage which has been taken by the Police or similar authorities you have a right to see that footage.
Corrupt paramilitary cops
Lawyers who force plea deals rather than risk excessive punitive measures in court
The rich go free whilst the poor and racially profiled get jailed
3 repeat offences for personal drugs use gets life where the rich steal millions and get away with it
Thank fuck you lot live a long way away
I've never really had a good experience with the Police in the USA.
As Frank Zappa once said:
“The United States is a nation of laws, badly written and randomly enforced.”
The only good experience I've had is when the Police came when my brother pretended to run away, and he hid in the bushes. They actually looked for him, and were nice, and one Officer was a personal friend of my father. That was back in 1974...
I've never had any encounter with police officers in the US (at traffic stops) which hasn't been curteous and professional.
That said, they certainly have a reputation of responding disproportionately: when you get in their way, if they get any bad vibes from you, or even if they don't like your jokes, they can and will quickly escalate the situation. Then, everything that you might do that offends them gives them a reason to use the full force of their authority.
No wonder then that there is mistrust, and that many advise against saying anything to an officer at all (unless in the presence of a lawyer, a lawyer would add) because there is a perception that anything incriminating that you say will be used against you, while anything exonerating is conveniently ignored or lost.
Anyway, think of all the great TV shows and youtube clips from police dashboard cameras, and think of the hilarious clips that we will get from bodycams!
Some people want more body cameras because they believe that they can use the video to claim discrimination for their criminal behavior. The crims however often find the video a bit of a problem when they get to court. Then their free of charge appointed lawyer has to convince the jury that the perp didn't do what they see on the video. If you were to believe the sensationally laced media, every time there is a shooting of a black person in the U.S. it was discrimination and unjustified. The facts however prove exactly the opposite. While there are certainly cases of misuse of force, the majority of the time police officers are properly performing their jobs even when faced with insurmountable challenges because the cops are outnumbered about 1000:1 vs. the perps. Check the U.S. dept. of justice crime statistics to get the truth instead of being duped by the sensationalistic media reports.
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