L.A. police to get Tasers that activate body cameras when used

[LP2K12]

Source: Reuters

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Los Angeles police on Tuesday ordered Tasers that, when used, automatically activate cameras on officers' uniforms, which will create visual records of incidents at a time of mounting concern about excessive force by U.S. law enforcement officers.

The 3,000 new digital Taser X26P weapons record the date, time and duration of firing, and whether Taser wires actually strike suspects and how long the thousands of volts of electricity pulse through them.

“This technology gives a much better picture of what happens in the field,” said Steve Tuttle, spokesman for the Scottsdale, Arizona-based Taser International Inc.

At a time of nationwide protests over officer killings of unarmed black men, supporters of the new technology say cameras can help resolve officer misconduct cases when there is conflicting evidence.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/l-police-tasers-activate-body-cameras-used-233541106--finance.html

[Keefer]

1. Kind of like

shutting the barn door after the horse is already gone. If you have to fire your tazer, your camera should have already been on.

[LP2K12]

2. Agreed

Glad to know that stood out to someone else. I'm assuming the goal is to have cameras running prior to the incident, but this is the "fail safe" to make sure there is footage if the camera is off?

[Locrian]

6. yes

They should have them "running" all the time into a buffer, but not storing unless fired.

If fired they would keep the record starting 10 minutes BEFORE the firing.


My home (FOSCAM) camera does that in a similar fashion. Not a issue IF they decide to close the loop hole so to speak.

Of course, they have to WANT to do that...

[Downwinder]

9. Cops argue that videos don't show all of the story.

Here they are intentionally omitting everything leading up to the firing of their weapon.

[KingCharlemagne]

10. Those ingenious LAPD cops. Why, what ever will they think of next? Here's a hint of what's

to come:

Los Angeles police officers tampered with voice recording equipment in dozens of patrol cars in an effort to avoid being monitored while on duty, according to records and interviews.

An inspection by Los Angeles Police Department investigators found about half of the estimated 80 cars in one South L.A. patrol division were missing antennas, which help capture what officers say in the field. The antennas in at least 10 more cars in nearby divisions had also been removed.

LAPD Chief Charlie Beck and other top officials learned of the problem last summer but chose not to investigate which officers were responsible. Rather, the officials issued warnings against continued meddling and put checks in place to account for antennas at the start and end of each patrol shift.

http://articles.latimes.com/2014/apr/07/local/la-me-lapd-tamper-20140408

My repeated calls (voicemails) and emails in protest of this to my City Councilperson Mike Bonin went completely unresponded to. I didn't contribute any $$ to his campaign, so that explains that. Won't be voting for Bonin when he's up for re-election in 2016-17.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

14. Shoot him with your revolver - no troublesome camera.

[Keefer]

15. Your post got me wondering

how many police departments still use revolvers?

[Hassin Bin Sober]

21. I see a lot (some?) of chicago cops with revolvers.

I think it has something to do with grandfathering the old timers and what they are used to and comfortable with. 357s I think but I could be wrong.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

26. OK, firearm then. But if they say their life was thretened and shot somone - no camera on!

[DetlefK]

3. Why not have them run all the time???

Activate them at the start of the shift, deactivate them at the end of the shift, upload the video-files to an internal server, store them for 1 month.

What's so tricky about that?

[Trillo]

7. On DU, not long back, medical privacy was mentioned

as one eminently-reasonable reason why cameras need to be the control of the cops, like when they are in a hospital.

They apparently have immunity under the law for their unreasonable actions, yet they still need to control the PR? I reckon our illumined leaders don't want parents with kids in school complaining on DARE day, or folks feeling resentment when they go to the courthouse or other government building, and have to go through police screening to get inside, etc. I rather imagine that horse left the barn long ago.

I think the cameras not only need to be on all the time, the footage needs to be sent immediately to non-cops and non-prosecutors. The footage should be webbroadcast live, so anyone can record any or all of it. I'm now of a mindset that any privacy we may feel we have is already an illusion, and the need for the public to watch these immune-from-prosecution killers is a compelling public interest.

[DetlefK]

11. What if the camera runs while the cop takes a shit? Or while you take a shit?

Making those records available to everybody would mean new forms of abuse and stalking.

[Trillo]

12. Not seeing someone take a shit versus protecting above-the-law killers?

Which is the more compelling interest?

I just remembered a "non-denominational" Christian boarding school I went to. They didn't even have doors on the toilet stalls. That means others may have watched me take a shit, cause just like everyone else, it happens regularly.

We also had to take showers after gym class with others (in a number of schools), there were no private shower stalls, at least in the 60s and 70s.

[DetlefK]

16. You are going down a slippery-slope pretty fast.

I could construct all sorts of scenarios where it's okay or not okay to violate the privacy of people.

Your proposal is to sacrifice privacy for security and that trade is not as straight-forward as you suggest.

[Trillo]

20. It is the lack of justice that occurs with cops killing people that has created the slippery slope,

that and the legal immunities given to police, which I understand, cannot be changed. In true Orwellian fashion, you have mislabeled the messenger of the solution as the problem. If the cameras are able to be turned off by the cops, given their lack of concern about killing folks then lying about the circumstances, with the prosecutors helping them to get their ducks in that row, then of course the footage will not show what most needs to be seen.

I screamed bloody murder to my parents (first in the sixth grade, IIRC), when showering with others was "mandated," also to the educators. Nobody cared, nobody did a thing. I had to do it I was told in no uncertain terms.

To this day, I haven't understood why. But maybe privacy is less about privacy and protecting average citizens than it is about protecting liars, cheats, thieves and murderers, particularly those on high.

[DetlefK]

23. You didn't read my earlier post.

I proposed having the cameras run all the time, store the records for a length of time, but getting them out only when needed.

[Trillo]

25. I did read that post. I was just debating.

The question is, who decides what footage is to be released? A cop? A local prosecutor? A federal prosecutor following laws generally written by legislators' biggest corporate campaign donors? All of those possibilities look potentially dirty to me.

When an innocent person is killed by a cop, if we as a people are to value life, then we can't have cops and powerful people justifying it via many apparently complicated mechanisms.

[Iggo]

17. If recording cops dropping a deuce is gonna save lives...

...then I say, "Smile!"

[DetlefK]

24. Sigh.

The police tries to arrest somebody. A brawl ensues. A breast pops out.

Smile, because your tits are now on the Internet, whether you like it or not.

[Iggo]

27. Who gives a shit?

A naked breast versus getting the job done without killing people?

Sigh, indeed.

[DetlefK]

31. Okay, big man. Come and prove that you don't give a shit.

Please post your full name, your full address, your phone-numbers (mobile and landline), your email-addresses (private and commercial), and your work-place here on DU, here in this thread, where the Google-Bot can find it.

1. You obviously have the opinion that there is no level of privacy worth saving as long as the goal is achieved.
2. All that personal info about might eventually come out anyway if you give the cops and anonymous internet users that much control.
3. You will totally be okay with privacy-violations of any level as long as the goal is achieved.

Why not cut it short and post that private information right here and right now?
You will be okay with having no privacy in the future.
Accordingly, you are okay with having no privacy in the present.

[Iggo]

33. How did you make that jump?

From a woman's breast being exposed during a scuffle with a cop wearing a body camera, to my posting my name and address on Democratic Underground?

[DetlefK]

34. You sounded like you don't care about people's pivacy.

You sounded as if you don't care that people being filmed by a body-camera would have their privacy violated.

I wanted to know if it's only other people's privacy that you don't care about or if that includes your privacy.

[Ikonoklast]

29. It would most likely take a court order to get to any video.

I sincerely doubt any citizen would be able to walk into their local police station and request all of last month's video for the local PD.

[Xithras]

30. It really depends on the particular state.

Legally, uniform cameras are treated the same way that dashcam footage is treated. In some states, dashcam footage is private and is only released at the discretion of the department. In other states with open government and sunshine laws, dashcam and uniform camera footage is treated just like any other document or media generated by the government, and is available to anyone who files a request for it.

In states like Vermont and California, for example, the states public records laws ONLY permit the police to withhold footage from the public if it is evidence in a current criminal investigation AND releasing it would impact the criminal proceedings. Once the criminal proceedings are wrapped up, the video becomes public record. Most sunshine law states have a few additional exceptions, allowing material that identifies the victims of certain crimes (like rape) to be censored permanently. The material will still be public, but names can be bleeped, faces blurred, or particular clips can be held back to protect the victims identity.

But the uniform video of some nude college kid getting detained for streaking? That will undoubtedly end up on the Internet forever.

[DetlefK]

32. I have a feeling there is a new hysteria going on on DU.

During the Bush-years, there was the Bush-derangement-syndrome: Everything that was not okay with the US was blamed on him. Gun-culture? That was Bush. It totally didn't exist before Bush. Poor people? Racism? The military-industrial-complex? They also didn't exist before Bush.

Now we have another hysteria: Please take away the last shreds of my privacy so I can feel secure again.

[wildbilln864]

4. they should be on at all times! n/t

[Iggo]

28. At.All.Times.

[petronius]

5. Interesting, but it seems like that's a little too late. Why not activate the camera

when a taser, gun, or baton is removed from its holster? Or set the cameras to always-on?

I understand that there are real privacy issues to the latter option in particular, but it seems that a better balance could be found than limiting the record to just after a taser has been discharged...

[NYC Liberal]

8. So we'll get no context. Just what happens when the taser is fired.

Then it'll be the cop's word as to what happened before. And how is that different from what already goes on?

[uppityperson]

13. rec for exposure, not for turning on cameras after tazing. They should be

on before, to show lead up

[nichomachus]

18. Still not sure what the point is

The cops murdered Eric Garner while being recorded on video. They got away with it. The cops viciously beat Rodney King while being recorded on video. They got away with it. How does this help?

[Ed Suspicious]

19. It's like the director yelling "ACTION!" Pull out that taser and put on your best show.

"He was coming right for us!"

http://southpark.cc.com/clips/149674/its-coming-right-for-us

[samsingh]

22. good.

[GreatGazoo]

35. Please tell the cameras aren't supplied under a deal with producers of Fox's "COPS"

They are going to get footage of people being killed by tasers, then what ?

and it won't take long before that happens. Here is one week's worth...

868. October 2, 2014: Michael Daryle Rose, 49, Flagstaff, Arizona
869. October 4, 2014: Lashano J. Gilbert, 31, New London, Connecticut
870. October 6, 2014: Iretha Lilly, 37, Waco, Texas
871. October 6, 2014: Balantine Mbegbu, Phoenix, Arizona
872. October 7, 2014: Daniel Tyson, 30, Hollywood, California

http://truthnottasers.blogspot.com/2008/04/what-follows-are-names-where-known.html