Is anyone keeping track of this huge expense?
as far as
who they are benefiting?

Have they saved enough of the l.e.o.s bacon to justify the expense?

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
Is anyone keeping track of this huge expense?
as far as
who they are benefiting?

Have they saved enough of the l.e.o.s bacon to justify the expense?

No. They still pay the families when the videos support the officer.

They still charge officers.

They still riot.

^^^^

Sounds about right. There is a large group of individuals who will never see a shooting as justified (and a small group who will never see a screw up).

Very few minds will change.

I don't think I have ever seen bodycam video that was any good; too jumpy, never pointed in the right direction, etc. I support the concept, however.

I support the idea behind them.

It has semi saved me once. A female said that I was making sexual advances on a traffic stop. Wasn't true and the body cam showed it 100%. It's pretty hard to make false claims if it is on camera.

Unfortunately, policy gets put in place for supervisors to audit a certain number of random videos a month. Which then turns into a witch hunt. Officers that I know have been written up for silly things during the audits, i.e. Boots not polished, tattoos not covered, etc.

I personally had a call that a guy was selling meth outside of a store. Long story short, I activated my body camera, suspect took off on foot when he saw me, I chased. He squeezed through a 12 ft iron fence that I wouldn't fit through because of my gear. I pulled a taser and told him if he continued to run I would fu***** tase him. He didn't run, another officer drove around and cuffed him. No taser deployment, no use of force, good to go. Suspect had a hipoint that I would be afraid to shoot and a bit of meth.

Supervisor asked if I had video and I was proud "heck yea I do!"

BAM! Written reprimand for using vulgar language.

Yup, nothing good come from them from the officer's perspective. I personally tested five different cameras at my old dept.

Just like in-car cameras, the sgts and higher were required to review the videos. BOOM, officers getting written up for not being polite(which they should but when you are fistfighting, I mean c'mon), not stopping at lights or signs even when running code, just everything you could imagine.

I am thoroughly convinced that the staff who can no longer take bad guys to jail, take it out on the workers...and get their jollies off on it.

Storage prices are sky high, the stuff malfunctions and then It looks like you are trying to hide stuff...the list goes on.

Most agencies her in Utah have shelved them. We all wanted them but the tech doesn't work well enough to help. My camera is a Bodyworn camera. It fits into a holster that is hidden with our shirt. It is basically an android phone with a camera pointing forward.

Battery won't make it even three hours so it is always parked in the car charger. Of course it's never ready when it is needed and it is very quirky as it shuts down on its own frequently. We have had so many problems with the technology that we turned off the video and now just use them as audio recorders.

Utah also added a new and very restrictive law on body cam use so a few of the local PD's still using them are either ignoring the new law or just getting rid of the cameras and sticking with just having car cams.

I think if they worked and the house mice got their paws slapped for trivial write-ups I'd be 100% for. The issues are too important, for officers, the public and victims of overzealous policing for crap to creep in to erode confidence and compliance. Anmd I don't think saying I will f****ing taze you is overzealous; quietly restrained in my view actually.

Not sure if they are saving lives, but definitely cutting down on reports of bad interactions with cops, according to the reports I saw about a year ago. Complaints were down like 50% in one study, because the complainants knew the incident had been videotaped.

Cut down on a lot of false complaints.

I keep our bodycam videos for three years.

They won't let me add a hard drive to the cars cameras so those purge every four weeks. So it's gone before trial.

Citizen complaints are down substantially. Folks call into complain and the supervisor says alright let me pull up that video and more times than not that person all of the sudden has someplace to be and can't talk and has borrowed someone's phone and does not have a return phone call.

But as others have said the supervisors that have long been on the desk and spent about 7 seconds on the street start doing their "random" reviews and here come the write ups for the stupidest things. Get punched in the face by a bad guy and curse because it really hurt well come in and sign your counseling.
Trash sitting it your front seat come in and sign, you did not signal your lane change when that car jumped in your lane last second while you were driving lights and siren, ohh you waited till you actually got to the door of the location to turn your camera on instead of getting out of your car.
The list of nonsense goes on and on!!!

The biggest detriment I have seen is no one comes and casually backs you up anymore. They know they will have to get out on the radio for a log number, pull up the video, label it, and so on.
Before if you were on a simple call by yourself you'd have a couple folks cruise by just to check on you. Not anymore folks only come if you call for someone.