Out of Their Control
November 10th, 2009 - 12:36 am
The Austin Police Department is trying to find ways to ensure officers turn on their dashboard cameras, and to make it easier, they also want to switch from a VHS system to a digital system. I am all for leaving behind VHS tapes, but as far as getting cops to turn them on, it should be automatically triggered … not when the door is opened, as they are suggesting, but at the moment the flashing lights are turned on. Isn’t that the point when really interesting things start to happen?
Yes, I want a fully digital camera system where all stored files are completely out of access for the persons operating the police vehicle, and I want the control of when they said cameras are turned on to be out of the hands of those persons as well. They need to come on the instant the switch for the flashing lights is turned to the “on” position. That’s objective oversight, and it gets rid of all those nasty human errors when they totally forget to turn on their cameras when they are tasing, beating, or shooting someone (or in some other way being an ass).
Speaking of cameras:
Did you know that some tasers have cameras built in that capture footage when they are fired. I didn’t, but as it turns out the one used to tase a grouchy senior citizen in the area not so long ago, did have a camera. The footage played a big role in the county settling her lawsuit rather than taking it to court.
Yeah, when a cop uses a taser on a small elderly woman –no matter how cranky and bitchy– it’s pretty outrageous. When he tases her again when she is lying on the ground face down, screaming, and unable to move? That’s a nice out-of-court settlement.
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2 Responses to “Out of Their Control”
I have a vested interest in this – my employer manufactures in-vehicle digital recorders.
There is no reason at all that a digital recorder could not be fitted to the cars that the occupants have no control over. The recorder should be recording all the time, not just when the lights/sirens are on – you catch some interesting things then too.
The problem with making these things options, even if it’s a “disciplinary offence” not to use them, is that by not using them a cop can save their backside. It’s been shown plenty of times that as honest as they should be, they really aren’t always.
And sometimes cops really can’t even remember what they did until the video is reviewed. People here still have a hard time with this one after five years:
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/blog/2006/05/cop-accepts-prison-after-videotaped.html