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Body Cameras Should Be Mandatory For Police


Use your brain

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With all of these police shootings that have occured I thought this deserved it's own thread for discussion. I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Think of how many lives could be saved, and people left unbeaten or mistreated by police. When you look at the statistics I am about to show you, ask yourself how many of these people "grabbed a taser" like the man in SC would have if it was not for the civilians video.

Keep in mind that it's still April.

6 police officers killed by gunfire. ( 2 were friendly fire )

4 police officers killed by armed suspects total.

https://www.odmp.org/search/year

331 people killed by police.

http://www.killedbypolice.net

I wonder how many of those would have been justified if the officers had on body cameras.

Make body cameras mandatory please, they will only protect the innocent, and would do no harm to those who don't deserve it...

I am not against police officers being armed or doing what they have to do to go home, but murder is murder and assault is assault.

Edited by Use your brain
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In 2008, federal police employed approx. 120,000 full-time law enforcement officers, authorized to make arrests and carry firearms in the United States.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcement_in_the_United_States

Go through that wiki page.

When you start to grasp the ungodly huge number of law enforcement agencies we all, jurisdictions, guns, cowboy traditions and rights of the citizen v. civilization you may start to wrap your mind around how strange it is that we are not constantly killing everybody at all times.

Hell look at the cause, results and effects of

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunfight_at_the_O.K._Corral

America is a strange place.

But.

It is gonna git worse before it gets better.

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I think it's a really good idea. I highly suspect that police departments won't think so though. People generally do not like to give up power over others....and being able to abuse their power is extremely common among law enforcement officers.

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I still think the main problem between the police and everyone else, is the seperation... "Us against Them"... Once upon a time cops walked a beat... they actually walked around and interacted with the neighborhood...

people knew them - as individuals.. and they knew the people in their area - as individuals... Kids were told, if they got lost, or were frightened by strangers to go to the nearest cop - he would help them...

Now, there is less trust...

Was it perfect back then? No... Were there still police abuses? Yes... But that is always going to happen when any group of people exercise authority over other groups... My (Partial) solution:

Get the cops out of their cars - and back into the neighborhoods... Of course it's not always practical... some areas need to be patrolled by vehicle... but many can be better patrolled by foot...

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The cameras are a good first step, but the question then becomes, "who controls the data"?

If it's the police or the DA, then it's not worth much of anything.

I mentioned in a previous thread that the images should be automatically uploaded to a cloud server in real time that no entity can access without the approval of a judge AND some type of community watch guard organization.

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I mentioned in a previous thread that the images should be automatically uploaded to a cloud server in real time

That is the way they do it in my city. Our police dept has had cameras for about seven years. They couldn't afford to supply them to all officers so they utilized them where they are needed the most...low income housing projects. It has drastically cut down on the instances of false police brutality reports. The cameras have benefited the cops more often than not and most of the ones I've talked to like having them.

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bad idea, you can't trust them to film their own missconduct, and not to erase an evidence of it. we seen them shut cameras off before, we have seen body cam videos, most are totaly useless, shaky blurry, and do not capture much from close up.

they need to be under surveillance all the time in any place, surveillance that they have no control over, cell phones in bystanders hands are doing wonderfull job so far. and so does cctv footage.

lets not give them more of anything, lets take away stuff, lets take missconduct settlements out of their pension fund, lets take guns from those that are trigger happy, lets fire cops who commits thses offences fast, disband their unions, and seize their funds, and put them into special account towards pay outs for missconduct settlements.

i mean if they want to have cameras to protect themselves agains made up complaints, i'm all for it too, let them, let their camera protect them, and ours protect us

Edited by aztek
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With all of these police shootings that have occured I thought this deserved it's own thread for discussion. I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Think of how many lives could be saved, and people left unbeaten or mistreated by police. When you look at the statistics I am about to show you, ask yourself how many of these people "grabbed a taser" like the man in SC would have if it was not for the civilians video.

Keep in mind that it's still April.

6 police officers killed by gunfire. ( 2 were friendly fire )

4 police officers killed by armed suspects total.

https://www.odmp.org/search/year

331 people killed by police.

http://www.killedbypolice.net

I wonder how many of those would have been justified if the officers had on body cameras.

Make body cameras mandatory please, they will only protect the innocent, and would do no harm to those who don't deserve it...

I am not against police officers being armed or doing what they have to do to go home, but murder is murder and assault is assault.

That doesn't go far enough. Those videos should be legally handed to the public.

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It disturbs me, and I think it is a sad sign of the American culture that shoot seems to be seen as an viable option so often. With this South Carolina shooting, someone who was nonviolent attempted to run away, should he have run? No. But does it warrent shooting? Not even in the slightest bit. The rational that it is better to shoot the man rather than letting him go and adding another warrent for his arrest...where did it come from?

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That doesn't go far enough. Those videos should be legally handed to the public.

to do what exactly?

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bad idea, you can't trust them to film their own missconduct, and not to erase an evidence of it. we seen them shut cameras off before, we have seen body cam videos, most are totaly useless, shaky blurry, and do not capture much from close up.

they need to be under surveillance all the time in any place, surveillance that they have no control over, cell phones in bystanders hands are doing wonderfull job so far. and so does cctv footage.

lets not give them more of anything, lets take away stuff, lets take missconduct settlements out of their pension fund, lets take guns from those that are trigger happy, lets fire cops who commits thses offences fast, disband their unions, and seize their funds, and put them into special account towards pay outs for missconduct settlements.

i mean if they want to have cameras to protect themselves agains made up complaints, i'm all for it too, let them, let their camera protect them, and ours protect us

But how is bystander going to intervene? and CCTV doesn't actually stop a crime right at that instant and anyone can view a cctv camera

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It disturbs me, and I think it is a sad sign of the American culture that shoot seems to be seen as an viable option so often. With this South Carolina shooting, someone who was nonviolent attempted to run away, should he have run? No. But does it warrent shooting? Not even in the slightest bit. The rational that it is better to shoot the man rather than letting him go and adding another warrent for his arrest...where did it come from?

What disturbs me most is that after the shooting, the cop calmly set up the scene, dropping something right next to the body. . .as if he had done this countless times before. . .it has long been determined by the Supreme Court that running away from a cop does not warrant a death sentence. . .I find the whole video sickening. . .and disturbing. . .as if I was watching some conflagrated fantasy concocted by a depraved mind. . .

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That is the way they do it in my city. Our police dept has had cameras for about seven years. They couldn't afford to supply them to all officers so they utilized them where they are needed the most...low income housing projects. It has drastically cut down on the instances of false police brutality reports. The cameras have benefited the cops more often than not and most of the ones I've talked to like having them.

Exactly - which is why I wonder why they fight so hard against them at times.

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It disturbs me, and I think it is a sad sign of the American culture that shoot seems to be seen as an viable option so often. With this South Carolina shooting, someone who was nonviolent attempted to run away, should he have run? No. But does it warrent shooting? Not even in the slightest bit. The rational that it is better to shoot the man rather than letting him go and adding another warrent for his arrest...where did it come from?

Exactly. And so what if he had gotten away? He wasn't a violent offender and didn't pose a threat to the public. Let him go and just pick him up later. Hell, I bet they could have driven by his house later that night and got him then.

It seems that a number of these officers involved in incidents of this type seem to have an inability to 'turn it off' if you know what I mean. Like the guy that was beaten on camera following the chase through the desert. OK, you've got him down, he's subdued, step back, and take a breath. Your job is done. It's not your job to punish him for being a pain in the ass. Punishment is for the courts, not the police.

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But how is bystander going to intervene?

he is not he is not supposed to, bystander will only record, that is all he\she needs to do.

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That doesn't go far enough. Those videos should be legally handed to the public.

What videos? Everyone of them? I don't think so. It isn't your business to watch videos of me being pulled over or if a cop showed up to my house for some reason. Maybe I'm confused but are you suggesting there should be live feeds of precincts body cameras 24/7 like a police scanner app? The cops have a right to shoot the breeze about their private lives while on downtime with the public listening in.

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What videos? Everyone of them? I don't think so. It isn't your business to watch videos of me being pulled over or if a cop showed up to my house for some reason.

yes, i too agree it does not go far enough,. yes we want those videos to be available right away, for your own good, so if a cop desides to tase you or shoots you dead claiming he was afraid for his life, we will see it, before it "dissapears". i do not really care about his privacy at downtime, as long as he is performing public duty, there is nothing private about his job. once his shift is over, he can have all the privacy he wants.

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I don't think the video should be made available unless there is an issue. If a cop were to pull me over and give me a warning instead of a ticket it's no one else's business. People would be questioning every move they make and they do have a bit of discretion.

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I didn't say videos shouldn't be available. They should be available to the party's the involve and not the general public. Should a video be obtained by the media and broadcast, well whatcha gonna do, but generally my matters with police aren't public property even if the police force is.

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by the time we realise there is an issue, video will be already gone.

That's a different issue. Related but different. Obviously there should be safeguards and consequences regarding the video files.

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That's a different issue. Related but different. Obviously there should be safeguards and consequences regarding the video files.

the only way we can make sure they do not delete\alter video, is when they have absolutely no access to it, or it has been made available before they can temper with it.

that is why i'm convinced police body camera as evidence against them, is as usefull as them investigating themselves.

may be that is why london police only kills few people a year if at all, becase london is filled with cameras, gvmnt and private cctv, not to mention cell phones, that cover pretty much everything, cops know anywhere they go they will be filmed, and wont be able to lie or temper with evidence. or may be they just do better screening before they hire

Edited by aztek
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To my point about safeguards and consequences. I do not want access to the video that records Aztek drunk on Friday night stomping around in the middle of the yard in his underwear yelling at those damn kids and his wife. I don't have all the measures in place but we can agree that there has to be some level of integrity and control when it comes to keeping all video files stored.

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All of our police department's videos are on a cloud server. Anyone accessing the video has to log in which leaves a record. They can download the video but can't alter it on the cloud server from what I understand.

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