Fusion Investigation of 5 cities finds body cameras usually help police. (The Company Getting Paid off Taser Guns is now Profiting from Police Body Cameras). From [HERE] A three-month Fusion investigation that reviewed hundreds of pages of records from five police departments with body camera programs reveals that the way body cameras are used usually serve police more than citizens charging misconduct. And in the data from two cities provided to Fusion, there was little evidence police body cameras reduced police involved shootings or use of force incidents.
One key problem: officers control the record button. They decide when to turn on and off the cameras and have little to fear when violating department policies about recording, Fusion’s analysis found. In many use of force incidents, camera footage doesn’t exist, is only partially available, or can’t be found. And when body cameras are turned on, the footage usually favors the officer’s account, according to police, law enforcement experts and public defenders we spoke with.
“This is one of our biggest concerns – the promise of this technology as a police oversight mechanism will be undermined if individual [racist] officers can manipulate what is taped and what isn’t,” ACLU Senior Policy Analyst, Jay Stanley told Fusion.
“There needs to be very strong policies that make very clear when police officers are expected to be recording and back that up with strict enforcement,” he said.
This has relevance in light of President Obama’s plan, announced in December, to get more body cameras onto the vests of police officers nationwide. Michael Brown’s family has demanded that all police officers wear cameras. [how many witnesses & cameras were on Oscar Grant [below] or Eric Garner?]
The cameras are marketed to police departments as a way to reduce citizen complaints and litigation against officers. Steve Ward, CEO of body camera manufacturer Vievu, told Fusion, “If police officers wear body cameras, 50 percent of their complaints will go away overnight.” He said the cameras “overwhelmingly” help the officers.
That’s what Fusion found in records obtained from five cities currently using police body cameras: Albuquerque, NM, New Orleans, LA, Salt Lake City, UT, Oakland, CA and Ft. Worth, TX.
In Albuquerque, the number of police-involved shootings has not fallen since the cameras were first introduced in 2010. In fact, there has been an increase in the police involved shootings compared to the six years before the cameras were introduced.
The Albuquerque Police Department’s most recent annual report shows there have been 598 citizens complaints investigated by the department between 2011 and 2014 and in nearly 74 percent of those cases, the police determined the allegations were “unfounded,” “not sustained,” or the officers were exonerated.
Albuquerque Police Department spokesperson Tixie Tanner told Fusion that video evidence played a role in the outcome of these cases.
Albuquerque police department policy states officers should record “all contacts with the public that could result in complaints against the department’s personnel.” But the data obtained by Fusion found that police officers failed to follow the department’s body camera policies 60 times in 2013. So far this year, the department has recorded 28 violations of the policy. The Albuquerque police didn’t say how many of the violations involved officers not recording when required to.
The police body camera wasn’t rolling when 19-year-old Mary Hawkes was shot and killed by an Albuquerque police officer in April. The police officer’s camera was turned off when the officer fired his weapon. Just this week, the officer involved was fired after an internal probe found he turned off his camera at least four times. It’s very rare for officers to be fired for failing to properly use body cameras. [MORE]