West Yorks rolls out cop cams, ignoring plod nod probs

iPlod

I want to see *every* cop, customs official, traffic warden, plastic plod and local council spy fitted with a plodcam. I want to see their entire daily movements put *unedited* onto a secure DB so that when someone complains about brutality or other illegal shenanigans then *we* the tax paying public get to see exactly what they were up to before, during and after the incident, and appropriate action taken against them. If people can get criminal records for having a wheeliebin a little bit overstuffed – then I’m looking forward to the day where Plod gets sent down for truncheoning an innocent bystander and customs officials sent down for being deliberately awkward, confrontational and provocative.

Do a search on YouTube for the US student who had a dashcam and got threatened with all kinds of nastiness by a lying cop. Priceless.

Mines is the coat, as Hell will have frozen over by the time we get some accountability back into out public *servants* .

Nodding Plod

Can't believe you missed that pun.

Paris cause her head also nods (or bobs) a lot.

@ Tony Chandler

@ Tony Chandler

You know, I wouldn’t mind that so much – as long as it was clear what was regarded “public” and “private”. Inside your home=private, on the street=public. On the public payroll makes your entire working day available as a part of public record (so excluding pee-pee time,lunchbreaks and personnel discussions with yer manager).

It’s the asymmetry of the data gathering that is the problem more than the actual gathering. Hence people feel very angry when they find out CCTV operators are sitting with cans of beer letching at M&S lingerie depts; more for the fact the operators are doing so with impunity. The public should have the right and opportunity to get recordings of the (publicly paid for) operator room, and if it’s seen that it’s a bunch of perverted f*cktards drunkenly w@nking off to women browsing for smalls – then bingo! Not only does it make good YouTube viewing – it also proves that all this State surveillance is voyeurism and almost nowt to do with “security”. Maybe then the sheeple of the so-called democratic societies will try and claw back some accountability back from their control-freak masters.

Desk Cam

Of the 141,000* serving policemen, it would surely be much cheaper to fix cameras to the desks of the 131,000 office based coppers, only operating 9 - 5.30 in accordance with their "intelligence led**" activities.

Shouldn't imagine the 3-trillion hours of form-filling footage would be much use to anyone...

* Accurate - sadly.

** Not accurate - equally sadly.

Tit on yer 'ead!

I imagine we'll soon see a rise in Yorkshire of the old sport of knocking the copper's helmet off! :-D

Paris, 'cos well she's just too good to overlook for some kind of helmet joke.

Evenin' all

What about when they put their thumbs behind their lapels and bend their knees? That will play havoc with the recording. So will whistling, holding their bellies while laughing, and many other commonplace police activities.

What's that you say? It isn't the Fifties any more? Bugger.

"No more nodding"

Just an appropriate quote from the movie Johnny Dangerously.

@AC

Of course, identifying what is public and what is private would be outsourced to the lowest bidder and the lowest bidder would be me. The thing with your girlfriend and the drunk might not be for public consumption but me and my mates will be having a laugh about it for years to come.

Will we get to view the footage of a bent Peeler?

You can see this one coming: plod have a new excuse: 'I was nodding in agreement with the defendant, which explains the blurred footage'. Translated: 'We put the frighteners on him. The 3 or 4 seconds of damming video is worse than useless - but all the rest shows me in a good light, so I'm safe from prosecution'.

I suggest we all tool up: one camera for each citizen. On the whole, the watchers don't like being watched...

Clerk! Mine's the one with the Orwell novel in the pocket. Anonymous because I've already read it and feel I'm living the nightmare.

copcams are great but...

only if they can be monitored by the general public. having it one sided is outrageous. I'm sure you could find enough volunteers to scan through the police tapes looking for misconduct, even on a long shift half of it must just be sitting on arse or wandering around... fast foward till you see the flashing lights or when they are interacting with someone.

gtg giant wasp just flown in arrrggghhh

iPlod on PlodTube

I'd like to see that! 24/7 Live CoppaCam [TM], arrests, chases, donut eating, visits to criminal hideouts, shootings, the lot.

They don't like it if you record them

How do you think they would react if you pointed a camera at them when they were talking to you. Probably ask that you switch it off. Also I expect there will be lots of 'inconvenient' times when the cameras stopped working. If something really important happens some men in dark suits will take the evidence before it can be looked at properly. Then we will get a gimped up video capture showing all four suspects in one shot again and again.

Focusing and zoom functions

I've used Helmet mounted cameras a fair bit while Snowboarding and mountain biking.

1. They are a right pain in the arse to operate - your average numpty plod won't stand a chance.

2. The Auto-Focus tends to get screwed up by rain/snow - especially if it hits the lens.

3. They don't zoom.

4. They don't usually have a wide viewing angle (special lenses are needed).

5. The picture quality is pretty crappy, mainly cos the CCDs are rather small.

6. On some recorder models that I've used, the SD cards have a tendency to slide out, too - thus ruining your recordings.

I really could go on...

...

It will be interesting to see these being admitted as evidence in a trial.

Numbers Game

> http://www.polfed.org/Losing_the_Detectives-final.pdf

Too True. Policing, like so many Government activities, has become a 'numbers game' where the only thing to matter is the statistics.

Result is that coppers are reluctant to attend a street-incident at all, if it's unlikely there will be arrests to be made. Thus, the only crimes to get dealt-with are those where an arrest is likely. The others are allowed to continue unabated - even if the fact that a copper had showed-up promptly would have deterred a repeat.

The converse is also true, that the police will jump-on any chance to charge Joe Public with a crime, no matter how preposterous that charge may be. There is, after all, always the possibility that the poor sod will plead guilty, and if so, that's another one on the scoresheet.

This situation naturally plays right into the hands of minor crooks, yobs and ne'er-do-wells, who by making a trumped-up accusation or two against Joe Public, find it very easy to get the coppers inadvertently working FOR crime instead of against it.

Oh, and then of course there are the 'Bandwagon Issues' like 'Zero Tolerance of Violence Against Women!!!!' - Anyone reporting an incident in one of these 'politically correct' categories will have half the local force out, complete with white hoods, burning crosses, megaphones and of course the obligatory squadron of black helicopters. . Even if it turns out to be a pillow-fight.

Any wonder crime flourishes?