What do we want police body cams to do?

This >>> “improve officer safety, increase evidence quality, reduce civilian complaints, and reduce agency liability.” I say is one of the top things. Accountability can be viewed for both sides of the equations, to which these cameras offer. Do Police make mistakes or intentionally cause harm? Yes, they do and these devices can deter such things. But as we can see from the tragedy in Memphis, some Officers neglect their training, fail to realize their actions will be reviewed, they got stupid, and these cameras have helped root out some from a very small amount of Police Officers inclined to abuse their authority and adherence to policy and law. But these cameras have also been invaluable at identifying those attempting to make false statements/complaints about Police too. A small search online will demonstrate tons of these examples.

But what also must be understood and appreciated, is that far too many people who do not know the law as much as they think they do, they love to play armchair QB for an officer's actions, and go on to make inaccurate assessments, prompting others to do the propagate these assessments. This is why I prefer that DAs not release footage to the public until the case has been resolved in court. High profile cases are likely to be viewed by most and can in turn influence potential jurors.

Police body cams should be mandatory on all local, state, and federal law enforcement. This is not only to hold those rogue elements accountable, but it is also for the protection of the police when false narratives are spread (like the false narrative that was perpetuated regarding Michael Brown*).

Access to body cam footage should be available to an independent organization that has been vetted and is held to higher standards to protect against "leaks" or through standardized rules (like the ones DC passed) that will try to strike the balance between releasing information of public interest and that which will be used improperly. Release of body cam footage comes in a proper method (such as approval though the courts) and any single points of failure need to be addressed.

Body cams will not solve all issues. There will be instances where an officer's or suspect's actions won't be recorded because they aren't in the field of view of the camera and there will be instances were the actions are captured but left up to broad interpretation because they aren't clear. However, for many of the police/public interactions, a lot of it will be reasonably documented.

If so, hopefully the next time a "Tyre Nichols" or a "Michael Brown" happens something will be there to show the correct narrative - not the one that got there first or is the loudest.

As a side note, I found the article mostly factual and unbiased, but there was definitely a lean towards "cops are bad and hide the truth". You can even explicitly see in the opening paragraph, "Not even the Memphis police chief could dismiss the video footage of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols being fatally beaten by cops in early January" which implies that the Memphis police chief was trying to, or would be inclined to, cover it up.
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* https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2015/03/04/doj_report_on_shooting_of_michael_brown_1.pdf

When I was in my civil Affairs unit in Upland california, we went to a local County Jail in Riverside county or San Bernardino County. I can't remember exactly which county it fell under. There was a camera in the booking section of the jail. We toured this as part of our civil affairs excursion. We went in uniform. One of c a t - A members was a sergeant in that particular jail. He said that the camera was really beneficial. Let's say you pulled somebody over that had $10,000 cash but was driving uninsured and involved in an accident while being under a DUI.

This jail is within 10 km of the Casino Morongo and often you will have members of that tribe with large sums of cash and they wouldn't be sober . Don't try to play the racism card on me because my wife is indigenous and some of them do have substance abuse problems but you notice the jails are mostly full of white drunk men and women.


They would make them count off the money under the camera and the guy could not say that the sheriff's department stole his money when he was released.

COL Randall C. MSG Joseph Cristofaro Maj Kevin "Mac" McLaughlin