How some “activists” are changing their tune on police body cameras
For as long as I can remember, self-appointed watchdog groups, “activists”, and the ACLU have demanded the implementation and use of body worn cameras (or BWC’s) for police officers. Every hour they are on the clock should be recorded and made available for public scrutiny. They pay our salary. They have a right, and we have nothing to hide.
The only hiccup I have seen in this process is that they are often confused by some of their fellow advocates for this technology: Police officers. In fact, I would go as far as to say cops have been begging for body cams far longer than the “activists” have. For the same reasons actually, but with one notable difference: the cops’ request is an informed decision.
In a shooting, a use of force, or even just a verbal altercation that gets used in a complaint, no matter how experienced a report writer a cop may be there is no way to capture the intangibles of such an interaction. The public and the critics see the results, and not what lead up to them; it’s the beauty of Monday Morning Quarterbacking because you don’t even have to try because you start off with an answer to a question you don’t even have to know how to ask. Now though?
People are finally in a position to see just how brutal the job is, and in High Definition no less. They are getting a front row seat to those dark alleys, those repeated refusals to drop a gun (a local record being somewhere around 40), of just what it’s like to be in the center of a crowd of 10, 20, 40 angry people in the projects who don’t want you taking little Jimmy to jail (Jimmy having just stabbed momma), of being pressed up against someone who is trying to get your gun out of its holster to kill you with and the sounds that accompany that kind of fight. People finally get to see what kind of incendiary predators we have to deal with, and it’s finally happened.
The ACLU is reimagining its policies on just what video can be released now.
“…we knew that our recommendations would evolve as this complex technology works its way into the messy real world. Our view is that for privacy reasons, the majority of body-camera video should not be subject to public release,” said Chad Marlow, ACLU Advocacy and Policy Counsel, and Jay Stanley (Senior Policy Analyst of the ACLU Technology Project) in a January 25th article published on their site.
“The exception is where there is a strong public interest in that video that outweighs privacy concerns: where there is a use of force, or a complaint against an officer,” they went on to say. (i.e., it is only releasable if they think it should be releasable.)
“In the prior version, we also recommended that any video of a felony arrest be in that category, but we’ve decided that’s too broad, because it would encompass a wide variety of DUI and other routine arrests that, in the absence of a use of force or complaint against an officer, are not of vital public importance,” said Marlow and Stanley.
In other words, no (in fairly specific words), the public doesn’t need to see what cops do and see every day—they should only see what the ACLU determines is “of vital public importance” otherwise the public (and God forbid, the ACLU) would see what cops have to deal with day in and day out and it may give people the idea that this is occasionally a fairly difficult job.
Felony arrests should not be immediately viewable by the public that determines what is and what is not a felony arrest? Now who has something to hide?
“…we knew that our recommendations would evolve as this complex technology works its way into the messy real world.” Well put, ACLU. Enjoy your front row seat to the party at very long last.
As for myself? This proclamation allows me to go collect on a gentleman’s bet. Thanks.