Body-Worn Video Surveillance in Law Enforcement

My concern with video surveillance is that it will be used selectively as a propaganda tool for some police agencies.

Or conversely: Official: Minneapolis police shooting vids won't be released

C of C is also a big issue and I'd bet some agencies won't let outside storage happen, ever.

I think that in the specific case you kindly posted, my personal opinion is that the police are correct in not releasing any footage or names and races. This must be done to stop any Tom, Dick or Harry, downloading video, changing it in some manner and posting it back online as being "the real thing!" or similar.

Many PCs have such software to allow such changes to be made to a video.....even Journalists, taking sides, have been known to "adjust" evidence.....

This is also Chain of evidence as you mentioned, that must be maintained. Allowing this too early into the public domain, can only cause serious problems.

The Robinson family have taken it that the policeman is in the wrong, even though there has been no open evidence either way....

I watch occasionally here UK TV, where some US Police videos are shown (UK ones are no better by the way!!), (also I know its selective, that's TV for you) and the way some people react shows a really "broken" upbringing, spiced by different drugs carried/taken.

You would think for example, assuming that the link you posted is about right, that when a victim is being attended to by medics, that anyone with the tiniest modicum of sense would stand back....apparently not.....but that could be drugs working, or even evidence that he wanted to "cover up!" OR BOTH!!

End result was a bullet in the head.....we will see eventually if it was correct or not!

I am AMAZED at the way some people "KICK OFF", on camera, when the police are already there. Simply no respect for the law or police officers nowadays......Or the Medics, who are also regularly being attacked when trying to help drunks for example.

UK-medics-attacked-every-other-day

How many "Perps" need not only to have handcuffs on, but also leg restraints. AND THEY ARE STILL GOING BERSERK, when all logic should say, you're caught, rightly or wrongly, give it a rest!

Assaults-on-UK-police-soaring

USA Police-officer-ambush-deaths

Its no wonder that Police everywhere get jumpy and use guns, maybe too soon, or were never issued with Tasers!!

I am very happy to live miles away from any large cities, especially ones like Paris, Frankfurt, London and Berlin for example......

I m also amazed that there are still people, threatened by the Police with Tasers or Tear gas sprays, (and in the USA with guns) who simply ignore the warnings and get "done".....How crazy is that? Death wish?

Many years ago, as young recruits in the RN in 1964, we had to be "Gassed" at least once to demonstrate the effects (going through a wooden hut filled with tear gas), in the case of we were helping to control civil disobedience, to know what it feels like......

We went in with Gas masks on and were only allowed out after we had removed the masks and stood there for 10 seconds or so!!!

Its NOT nice and takes about 30 odd minutes to wear off (if I remember correctly), face full of tears and "Snot", pain, but no after effects....but I had NO interest in causing an affray during that time!!!

No Tasers then for which I am grateful!! But I have had SO many electric shocks in my life, some HV ones too, I can imagine how it feels.

What is also amazing, is the number of drug addicts, who even after being "Tased" once, need a second or third dose before they start taking it seriously!!!!

The UK has more video cameras per head of population than any country, these have proved very useful in finding perpetrators of various crimes. I am fully for them. Paris will go more in this direction shortly I feel, let us see!!

I see the day when all western countries will need to follow the lead that the UK has made and install more surveillance cameras.

But the civil OUTCRY in the USA will be horrendous!! I can hear it already!!! But maybe the Paris attacks will reduce that.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-02-10-1Asurveillance10_ST_N.htm

In Germany, we have video surveillance on all train stations for example, but the Police idiots ONLY switch it on if told to - too much video to watch they say otherwise!!! So it misses just about everything that it is needed for......WANKERS!!

It only needs to be retained for a specific period of time and if no requests for it are made, it can be erased after a specific number of days, say 7, for example......

Sorry, rant over.

Nicely ranted.

I'm of the opinion that people who do not live in the United States should refrain from telling those of us who do live here how they THINK things are here and how they THINK things should work here.

You have no real frame of reference, just what you see on TV!

Especially those who have expressed radical opinions many times in the past!!!!!

Andy Germany and Wal.

...says Lyn the introvert.

You're not exactly backward in coming forward with your own 2 bob's worth on issues, places and things outside your own hometown and realm of personal experience.

Radical is a very loaded word sport.

Good one, thanks, but he will NEVER understand until the terrorists are on his street.....

.....And anyone coming from a country that has had so many wars and fully unapproved terrorist actions INSIDE OTHER COUNTRIES, should be more careful of how they address the rest of the world!!!

"DO WHAT I SAY AND NOT WHAT I DO????"

Remember, the USA has endured very little internal effects from such wars up to now.

I believe that there are some BIG changes coming......so you think 9/11 was bad?

It was terrible in its way and I had hoped it had woken up the USA, but it seems I was wrong, also it was nothing in comparison to what the future might bring unless the Police and the other enforcement agencies in ALL western countries really get a handle on this.....and as soon as possible!

French citizens are woken up to reality now, and look at what and how long it took!!

Almost every large country has done bad things at some point in its history, and quite a few small ones too!

The UK invented Concentration Camps, but the Germans adapted them to their WW2 peak, but still many countries have similar systems even today.....

Also, many countries have experienced bloody internal turmoil and worse.....

Basically, living in "Glass houses" should preclude stone throwing!!! But obviously it doesn't!!

You should try learning and understanding better WORLD history. It will benefit you greatly in the future.

Furthermore, the USA should be taking in far more of the people displaced in the middle east, but they haven't, why? They have promised to take up to 10,000 by 2017, BFD!!!

Even the UK, who should be doing FAR more, has taken more of them than the USA.

Germany has up till recently, take around 160,000 refugees, probably more than ALL the other western nations put together....and contributed $$Billions$$ to Turkey to help them cope with the flood!!!!

More video security is needed and now!!

I wish you a very Happy New Year.....

First you say, "that the police are correct in not releasing any footage or names and races. "

Then, "even though there has been no open evidence either way...."

The evidence may well exist in the form of the videos. We may never see them.

I don't know how it affects you personally, but try and restrain your eagerness.

I and many others, are also interested as well, but we can be patient......

There is nothing we can do to help anyway.....

If we never get to see the videos until after any relevant court cases, I can personally accept that fully.....its mostly nosiness on our part anyway.....

Over the last few years, there have been several such cases where evidence in the form of video was made available and it was found to support the police and then journalists and others claimed it had been editted.....

This could settle in the minds of possible jurors in a manner negative to the truth.....

Wait up!

"But the civil OUTCRY in the USA will be horrendous!! I can hear it already!!! But maybe the Paris attacks will reduce that."

We've already seen enough abuse in the 'dashboard camera' systems that we assume any withholding of the video means that the officer was violating the law he has sworn to uphold, and the police force is bringing up the 'blue wall of silence' to protect their own.

There are already laws on the books in several areas of the US making it illegal for civilians to photograph or make a video recording of law enforcement personnel when they are out in public areas.

Perhaps it's best to look at the demographics of Americans and Europeans to see the reason for this difference in attitudes:

• Americans (of European stock) are the descendants of people who were fed up with the hierarchal and often hereditary system of government in the various European nations. They are the descendants of people who aid, "We're so sick of the privileged few making all the rules to benefit themselves and screw us over that we're now willing to share the same side of the planet with them."
• Modern Europeans are descendants of people who looked at the same conditions and said, "I'm fine with these people lording over me."

Why do you think we still respect the archetype of the Cowboy, the Rugged Individual who does not care what the local sheriff says, he is going to Do What's Right, even if that puts him at odds with the law? Why do you think we still have a 'gun culture,' and treat the Second Amendment, the right to Keep and Bear arms, as the most important part of the Constitution? We do all this because we remember in our culture a time when 'The Authority' was in the wrong, and we had to fight for the right to govern ourselves. We will always be 'the nation of immigrants,' we will always be The People Who Chose To Leave The Old Ways.

Our Fourth amendment prohibits the government from 'unreasonable searches and seizures,' and constant surveillance of people who are not suspected of wrongdoing is considered an 'unreasonable search' in the eyes of the public.

Allow be to close with a paraphrased quote from one of the Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin: "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." It might be good to remember that when you think about that government security camera looking over your shoulder, recording your choice of reading material, and cataloging it in a database that correlates that to which party you favor. I know we've both read our history books, are you really sure that no party, or subgroup within a party, would want to get their hands on that sort of information to identify whose they consider 'dissidents'? We both know which party I'm talking about, I won't name them in deference to German laws banning the party, plus I refuse to give those nutzcases the respect of using their name properly.

( Sorry if I'm kind of all over the board here, this is a topic that has a lot of comments jostling in my head, all wanting to be heard. )

http://time.com/4180889/police-body-cameras-vievu-taser/

Interesting post, but please "activate" the link using the CR4 menu, then anyone interested can just click on it with the left or right mouse button to see it.

Thanks for your understanding.