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Police describe body-camera test at meetings this week

Residents can get info and comment on Boston Police's plan to outfit up to 100 officers with body cameras in May at meetings tonight and Thursday, organized by the City Council's Committee on Public Safety and Criminal Justice.

Tonight's session starts at 6 p.m. in the Charlestown High School cafeteria, 240 Medford Street. Thursday's also starts at 6, at the First Parish Church of Dorchester, 10 Parish St.


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Comments

If they can have cameras watching citizens on public streets then why citizens have cameras watching them?

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When an officer uses the restroom and turns off his camera, then forgets to turn it back on before responding to a call?

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We'll all wonder if they washed their hands, I guess.

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What if while they're on that call, they fire their service weapon?

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They should probably be subject to disciplinary and/or legal action. Setting the price for the utilization of lethal force at "push a button after peeing" doesn't seem particularly extreme.

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Then we assume they're guilty of whatever they're accused of, and we tack on an "impeding investigation" charge to boot, in the grand tradition of the long blue arm adding spurious charges to arraignments. Then it's incumbent on them to prove their own innocence, which will perhaps be enough motivation to make them follow the damned law.

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" Then it's incumbent on them to prove their own innocence"

Please, skip jury duty.

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So guilty until proven innocent. Gotcha.

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I was quoting Erik G

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Got called up for a trial last month, actually. Nasty bit of work with a broken lease and a vengeful property management group.

To the point, though: if you're a police officer who is legally required to have your camera turned on, and it just so happens to be turned off, and you fire your weapon after you disable the camera: yup, if I'm on your jury, you're going to prison. Presumption of innocence is great, but a centuries-old police code of making shit up and getting away with it leaves me a little hesitant to believe that your camera just happened to malfunction on the day in question.

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Again do everyone a favor and skip jury duty.

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Are there other groups to whom you believe the Constitution and Bill of Rights shouldn't apply? People you believe are muddying an ethnic pool, maybe? Or you think are more likely to be loyal to their ancestral home rather than the US in a time of war?

I'm not saying you're alone in thinking some people don't deserve those protections, but you might be surprised who your bedfellows are.

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Keep them rolling all the time and make the footage public - people really need to see what cops are forced to deal with on a daily basis.

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So what of the people interacting with officers not for any criminal matter. No privacy for them?

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What about the rights of the police? What if a citizen demands they shut off the camera, but they have a funny feeling about them and don't want to?

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So we make public every single interaction with police to alleviate that? Lets think about that for 2 seconds.

How about security cameras and dash cams? Should every single one of them be public?

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I often see cops at Lambert's getting lunch or dinner. Are the body cameras going to be on me if I'm in front of them? I don't want them to know that I'm getting chicken parm when I'm a vegan and on a diet who's having a really bad day and wants really bad comfort food.

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on you tube. We just have to get used to it, until you're the one on camera.

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given the aggressive surveillance state.

I understand reasons cops might sometimes want cameras, and reasons activists might sometimes want them, and if we didn't have federal psychos trying to spy on and record the every moment of everyone, then maybe cameras could be worthwhile. At this point, there is zero trust that cameras will be used responsibly.

The activists are being tricked to work against their own interests.

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If the Boston Police are required to wear body cameras shouldn't the state police, transit, campus police, and all the feds who work in the city be mandated to wear body cameras.

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