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Judge: BPD can order officers to wear body cameras in test
By adamg on Fri, 09/09/2016 - 1:13pm
WBUR reports a Suffolk Superior Court judge today agreed with the city that it can order 100 police officers to wear body cameras to test whether the system could work in Boston.
The city and the patrolmen's union had worked out an agreement for voluntary participation in the pilot, but BPD Commissioner William Evans announced plans to order 100 officers to wear the cameras when none actually volunteered.
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Comments
That's
great!
Will have to read more
But the way you've worded it, Adam, suggests that he mandated participation for the pilot.
So, we'll be back in court again when the pilot ends and the city wants to put the cameras into full time operation?
Success! or Success?
Why do I have a feeling we're going to get a lot of video footage of the backs of lapels and fingerprint smudges?
Oh, right, this: Cop drives wrong way to protest civilian flaggers.
Most cops are great
But there are a sizable percentage who act thuggish, are rude to the general public, and abuse their power. The cameras are an attempt to control these people who shouldn't be allowed to be on the force.
They cameras are not flawless and they open up a range of problem of their own. However, no one has come up with a more effective way of documenting the actions of abusive police in a way which gets them to shape up or find another line of work.
The biggest hurdle is the
The biggest hurdle is the Blue Wall, anti-snitching policy among cops. Smaller things can be done like doing away with quotas and doing away with petty, broken-windows-esque infractions.
How's it work?
Surely they can turn their camera off if they need/want to? I would expect to see videos that show cops always doing the right thing. On the rare occasion where something unpleasant happens that would make them look bad, I'd expect to hear that the camera suddenly "wasn't working".
Cool.
Cool.
No
Not sure about Boston but most cities the officer has zero control on whether the cam is on or not. Having an off button deletes the purpose.
What I'd REALLY like to see is how the footage is used. Someone on another thread earlier made a point about talking to police in confidence that it wouldn't be repeated. A camera wouldn't really allow for that. But if the footage cannot be used without a court order, then it's going to stay private.
cameras on cops
To bad that the trust we show these brave men and women have been compromised to this level.
The same people that distrust them need them the most
Isn't about trust
I trust them all to do their jobs well. We're lucky that way here in Boston. We have a pretty good police force in place and looking out for us.
I don't have to distrust them to want to have evidence that one of them is a screwup when one of them is a screwup.
In fact, having that evidence means we can terminate the screwup quickly. And that means the ones that aren't terminated can be trusted that much more.
This isn't about trust. It's about an additional source of evidence. Cops love evidence. They should love having more of it.
Well
Probably that's most of the reason why the police union is against them. We'll know if in the next contract they push for language specifically prohibiting disciplinary actions based on camera footage.
I bet half
of the useful body cam footage will show cops doing their job, and the citizenry acting like jerks (here's a few examples).
This will be helpful for the officers. It should help to gain convictions, and help defend officers from bogus charges of excessive force, racism, etc.
I also support firm controls on who can see the footage and there should be clear tracking of who has looked at it, and when.
For this reason, I think union members should support the body cams.
Half?
Try 99.9%
Our tax dollars at work
Boston is always behind when it comes to technology. Every other major "world class" city in the US and even our MA State Police have a body camera program to some degree. Besides why wouldn't the Boston Police want the community to see the outstanding job they are doing. I know Boston Police have no "bad cops" on the force. They are all model citizens. So what do they have to hide by wearing a body camera?