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by rsync 3687 days ago
Killing someone is more serious than tampering with evidence.

If it is claimed (and it is) that police officers sometimes kill people and get away with it, it's easy to conclude that they can also get away with tampering with evidence.

Therefore, I believe it's easy to conclude that body cameras will do nothing at all to curb the instances of police getting away with killing people.

Get ready for "malfunctioning and/or obstructed" cameras.
5 comments
rtpg 3687 days ago
If you, as a police officer, are in court because somebody died in an altercation with you, and the camera was obstructed/destroyed, and there are any eyewitnesses at all that will testify to your bad behaviour, you are toast.

Most juries will assume you destroyed evidence out of malice, and the prosecution will go for that.

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chillwaves 3687 days ago
Do you have any examples of this happening? Because there are multiple examples of the opposite. The boy shot in Ohio with the toy gun is one, off the top of my head. I am sure there are many more.
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tamana 3687 days ago
Not when prosecution is a collegial DA who uses the missing video as a lack of evidence and declines to press charges.
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brobinson 3687 days ago
>Get ready for "malfunctioning and/or obstructed" cameras.

This is sadly already happening.

https://www.google.com/#q=police+turn+off+body+camera

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alexandercrohde 3687 days ago
That sounds rather defeatist, not to mention contradictory to the evidence presented by the article.
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baddox 3687 days ago
There are videos of police murdering people taken by police car dash cams. It seems they're not 100% effective at hiding the footage.
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Sevrene 3687 days ago
I agree with you, but isn't this more of a problem with the implementation of body cameras, rather than the idea itself? Normally these sorts of places create bureaucratic systems to enforce common practise and a set of standards, which can be easily circumnavigated if you know the right people. I don't see why the police department can't create a system which requires police to have functioning body cameras, and use software and hardware to enforce it properly, rather than just relying on trust.
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