Report Information from ProQuest
October 06 2014 18:45
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06 October 2014
ProQuest
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Today's Police Put On a Gun and a Camera
Author: Johnson, Kirk
ProQuest document link
Abstract: Liability-conscious city attorneys say the cameras could help in lawsuits; rights groups, including the
American Civil Liberties Union, say police accountability will be bolstered by another layer of public documentation; and the Justice Department, surveying 63 police departments that were using body cameras and many others that were not, concluded in a report this month that the technology had the potential to
"promote the perceived legitimacy and sense of procedural justice" in interactions between the public and law enforcement. Links: Linking Service
Full text: PULLMAN, Wash. -- Amateur videos of police officers doing their jobs have become part of the fabric of urban democracy, with embarrassing or violent images spreading via social media in minutes.
But more police agencies, especially after the unrest following an unarmed teenager's shooting in Ferguson,
Mo., are recording events with small body-mounted cameras.
In just the last few weeks, law enforcement agencies in at least a dozen cities, including Ferguson; Flagstaff,
Ariz.; Minneapolis; Norfolk, Va.; and Washington, have said they are equipping officers with video cameras.
Miami Beach approved the purchase of $3 million worth of cameras for police officers, parking enforcement workers, and building and fire inspectors.
The New York Police Department, the nation's largest urban force, has studied how Los Angeles is incorporating body cameras and is planning its own pilot project. A law in New Jersey, signed this month, requires all municipal police departments to buy car-mounted or body cameras, and creates a new fine on drunken drivers to help pay for it. And the United States Border Patrol, with more than 21,000 agents, recently said it would start testing cameras this year.
The experience of the police in this college town in eastern Washington provides a glimpse of how the technology is used.
Shane Emerson, a barrel-chested police officer with a shaved head, was responding to a report of inebriated students -- not an unusual assignment here. Friends of the youths rushed up as he began his questioning, brandishing their cellphones and telling him that they were recording the encounter.
"Cool," Officer Emerson said. "I am, too."
The shift has been sudden and seismic, primarily because various interests, often opposed, have lined up in support of the idea. Liability-conscious city attorneys say the cameras could help in lawsuits; rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, say police accountability will be bolstered by another layer of public documentation; and the Justice Department, surveying 63 police departments that were using body cameras and many others that were not, concluded in a report this month that the technology had the potential to
"promote the perceived legitimacy and sense of procedural justice" in interactions between the public and law enforcement. But the spread of police body cameras is also raising concerns about what is recorded, when and how video might be released to the public, and how the millions of hours of video will be archived and protected from leaks and hackers. Some police unions worry that videos could become tools of management, used by higher-ups to punish an officer they do not like, or that private conversations among officers could go public.
The rising use of cameras has put the police in a complex and uncertain landscape of public records law.
In Oregon, for instance, state law requires notification. Would that mean officers wearing body cameras have to
