If there’s one thing everybody can probably agree on when it comes to the Michael “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” Brown case, it’s this: Too bad there wasn’t video. Absent that, we have over- reliance on conflicting testimony–where self-serving agendas, partisan outlooks and witness-perception frailty all factor in.
Of course, the upgrade to video is still imperfect, as we learned from the Eric Garner case. Who was a grand jury to believe? A cellphone video, a medical examiner or their lying eyes, to paraphrase Richard Pryor.
In New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio is now a true believer and has made body cameras on cops a priority. “They are one of the ways to create a real sense of transparency and accountability,” he recently explained. We get it–even if that Staten Island grand jury didn’t.
His rationale was later complemented by President Barack Obama’s public announcement that he would be requesting $75 million in federal funds to distribute 50,000 body cameras to police departments nationwide. The president made it clear that cameras would help improve relations between police and the communities they serve.
Locally, the Tampa Police Department has been reviewing proposals for body cameras. The hope is to have some in place as early as next month. The goal is to eventually provide them to all 750 patrol officers.
Elsewhere in the region, Plant City Police are in a trial phase, Clearwater plans a pilot program in the new year, St. Petersburg plans to test cameras by June and the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office will do the same starting in February.
The Pasco move predates the Michael Brown shooting, points out Pasco Sheriff Chris Nocco. “The incident in Ferguson did expedite the process,” he acknowledges. “Citizens videotape us all the time and deputies are constantly having a videotape in their face, so the deputies came to us.”
Before America’s recent crucible with high-profile, racially-explosive cases, body-camera use had already been on the increase. Now it’s been accelerated.
And yet.
We’re talking a tool–not a panacea. We know how tools can be misused. There’s precedent.
So questions remain–even though we have those studies from Arizona (Phoenix and Mesa) and Rialto, Calif. that show that the use of force and civilian complaints against officers when they wore cameras decreased.
That’s encouraging–even though we don’t have all the context and Mesa isn’t Ferguson or New York.
In the coming months and years, we will be answering questions that are largely still in the theoretical stage. To wit: When should officers turn on–and off–their cameras? There’s still no consensus. Citizen accusations of selective recording are not hard to imagine. Policies and real-world applications await.
Another key query in the wings: To what extent should police have control of or access to videos taken by their own body cameras? Not surprising that when the Police Executive Research Forum surveyed police chiefs, a majority supported allowing officers to review videos before making statements.
A TPD committee will recommend a proposal that will be submitted to the city’s purchasing department. City Council will ultimately make the decision and then remind us all that this is about accountability and citizen safety. It is. Then we’ll soon be seeing TPD officers with cameras.
And then we’ll be hearing about privacy issues and selective recordings. It’s part of breaking in that new tool.
No, it won’t be perfect, but, yes, it will help. That part makes perfect sense.