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That doesn't make any sense to me. Video of bystanders? So what? Shouldn't we be outraged about other public cameras as well that the police use to catch criminals then? Don't people who film the police also film "bystanders"?

I think at the very least if the videos are kept secret until judicial review, then the police officers should be forced to keep them on all the time during work hours. The videos should also be automatically uploaded somewhere where that police department can't control what happens to the videos.

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This is important.

There was a case here a few years ago where someone accused the police of assaulting them when they went in to report something (misconduct by a police officer from my vague memory). The police station had cctv cameras, but when the court asked for the video, the 20mins around the time claimed by the victim was "missing due to technical difficulties" - curiously the _only_ missing video in the preceding 18 months or any subsequent time.

If the police get to collect and only use the video when it suits them, I'd like to see "presumption of innocence" not apply (to police) when normally expected bodycam footage is missing.

If I were on that jury, I'd consider the missing footage super sketchy.

I posted this link else where in the comments too:

http://thefreethoughtproject.com/police-cadet-turns-cop-turn...

Police often get calls about domestic disputes that require them to go inside houses. Would you want a video from inside your house to have to be made available to the public by law?

Even if the "one-size-fits-all philosophy" about this doesn't work, it could still be regulated in a way where most of the video is public. Cop responds to a domestic issue and knocks on the door? He records himself prior to that in front of the door saying he will close the camera for that next action.

SWAT team about to enter a home or use a "no-knock" warrant? They aren't allowed to turn off the camera there. Same for the vast majority of the other police actions that happen in public.

Unfortunately, I'm sure the cops will find some loopholes to abuse this, too, and turn off the cameras when they aren't supposed to, especially if nobody ever punishes cops for such actions (which they don't), but I'd probably still take that over making all footage private by default. In many cases the cops doing bad things would still get caught because they forgot to turn off the camera or didn't think ahead to do it.

If the cameras can be turned off, they will be turned off whenever some bad cop wants to do something he or she does not want to be on record. So the cameras will not be useful.

Either the cameras are on all the time, or you can forget about them.

Or you let the cops know that unexpectedly missing footage will be interpreted as strongly confirming of accusations against them.

And then back that up with career advancement metrics designed to motivate individual cops to ensure their camera gear is working and reliable. Missing 2% of your bodycam footage a week without having made a documented effort to get it repaired/replaced is a warnable offence. Missing more than 5% you get your pay docked. Miss 5% more than twice in a calendar year is a sackable offence. Any claims made in court about events that happen while your bodycam footage is unavailable remove your usual police department protection, and expose you to civil suits that you're normally shielded from. If a civil suit rules that "in the balance of probabilities" you were wrong, you become personally exposed to damages.

As the law & order types love to say "If you're not doing anything wrong, you've got nothing to fear." It cuts both ways.

That allowable 1.9% of 40-60 hours of work could be a murder.

Cameras can malfunction. Buttons do malfunction. Having unexpected missing footage will be perfectly normal if there is a button that is used for breaks etc, because the police will have a reasonable explanation for why the button press didn't register (like "I was having a donut break, I was stepping out of the car, it looked as if someone was pulling a gun, and at the same time the police radio reported of a warning of an armed suspect, I could not stop there to confirm that the camera went on, I just ducked behind the car.")

There's a wider culture issue with American police organisations, and my understanding is that the situation varies wildly across different states and cities. I don't think that adding complex camera usage rules will help a lot.

I'm not American, and in my country of 5.5 million people the police use the gun about 50 times a year; in this context, pointing gun at someone counts as "using" the gun and needs to be reported. In 2013 the police fired six bullets (training shots are obviously not counted, but warning shots are).

And that six bullets is not per one policeman, they are for the entire police force of 7800 police officers.

And yes, the general public here has almost as many firearms per capita as the Americans do. It's just a different culture. Not one without violence or homicide, but still quite different, from the police point of view.

It's not a complex rule. If you're an officer, have a camera, and you have been accused of wrongdoing, then summary dismissal of the charges will not be possible if the footage is absent.

> If the cameras can be turned off

Have you given any thought to the implications of wearing a camera for 8-12 hours a day? Cops need to use the bathroom too... Body cameras will always need to have the ability to be turned off.

Of course this is a real problem. But if the camera can be turned off, then it will not be recording all bad behaviour, because the policeman can turn it off when he wants to (and then, instead of going to the bathroom, he can shoot someone).

I'd say it should only be public when used as part of a court case (introduced as evidence by either party), with the juries instructed that they may draw adverse inferences if the video goes missing for any reason (i.e. losing the tape is automatically suspect).

The rest of the time it should be kept and unwatched. Ideally, I also think it would be best if everyone had to give sworn statements before they knew what was or wasn't on video (so nobody gets to change stories to match...) and that the video was stored, archived, etc. by an outside agency that doesn't answer to either party. But I wonder how much of that they'd be able to accomplish.

Instead of turning the camera off, flag that section as private (and only available thru the courts and whatever lesser internal review / complaint mechanism).

Or what about a waiver signed by those recorded.. We could, you know, give some if the power to the people involved.

> "Video of bystanders? So what?"

As someone else mentioned, sometimes bystanders are caught on film doing something they don't want others to know they do -- they're at the "wrong" kind of club, religious service, political event, restaurant, etc. from the perspective of their family or social circle.

And yes, these same concerns apply to other types of cameras -- particularly those that, like police body cameras, might also be used inside private spaces. That doesn't mean we should be "outraged", but we should be concerned about the potential dangers posed by a default expectation of public release.

Finally, I completely agree that police should have to keep their body cameras on during work hours, though there needs to be some solution for restroom breaks.

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