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Comment by cryptoz | Hacker News Reader

- What happens when the bodycams are off? Is the officer fired and jailed?

- What happens when an officer fails the pysch eval? Are they fired?

- Who oversees the corruption reporting? How do you know they are not corrupt too? They surely can't be part of the police dept.

- Reduce/eliminate drug penalties: The problem is racism where drugs are often used as the excuse. Why is there no racism training in your list? Or de-escalation training?

> Unfortunately, the greater group of protesters is incapable of understanding nuanced policy or democratic change.

This is extremely rude and invalidating of large efforts put forward by the protesters to look at all options, think outside the box, and make real change. Some protesters have even been re-writing the police and city budgets themselves to see how things might turn out.

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> What happens when the bodycams are off? Is the officer fired and jailed?

If an officer's bodycam is turned off and there is a confrontation, the officer should be assumed guilty in any dispute. It should be the officer's responsibility to ensure their bodycam works, just as it is the officer's responsibility to ensure their gun works.

They aren't even assumed guilty when they're filmed killing someone.

Yes, that's why I said should.

I think bodycams themselves are fantastic tools—but like most technology, they cannot by themselves fix a human problem.

Our system doesn't assume criminal guilt under any circumstances, by design, and that's a good thing. Everybody accused of a crime has the right to a trial, even cops.

Let me expand on what I wrote: From a professional perspective, you should be assumed guilty, and probably loose your job, if you are accused of something and your body cam was not on. Because even if the accuser is lying, why was your camera off?

From a legal perspective, I think a cop without a body cam should be given the exact same rights as a private citizen, including around the use of force. The right to use force comes with responsibilities, like having a body camera.

And when standing in court as a private citizen, a body cam which just happened to get turned off at the exact time of the incident should be viewed with extreme suspicion. Not proof in itself, but a very serious black mark.

That's not entirely true. There are a category of legal defenses called "affirmative defenses" [1] where you are presumed guilty and have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt something that makes your typically unlawful conduct lawful. Self-defense, insanity and fair use are common affirmative defenses.

I would expect affirmative defenses to be fairly common in trials involving police; there's typically not a lot of argument around whether an officer assaulted/killed someone, just over whether the use of force was authorized.

That being said, I would be more in favor of changing jury instructions to indicate that the lack of body cam footage can be seen as an incriminating factor. Not that it 100% means that they are guilty, but that it can be considered suspicious circumstantial evidence. Much in the same way that you cannot be compelled to self-incriminate, but that juries are allowed to interpret invoking the 5th amendment as incriminating.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_defense

What about adding mandatory personal liability insurance for all cops, just like what doctors have to pay into? Then when they mess up, they are personally on the line instead of the taxpayer.

It's not rude, it's a reasonable list of suggestions.

The statement "the greater group of protesters is incapable of understanding nuanced policy or democratic change" is extremely rude. It's also wrong. It definitely violates HN guidelines in at least 3 different ways.

They made a low-effort post of ill-advised, out-of-touch suggestions and ended with lobbing direct insults at huge swaths of people.

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