Police body cameras

[madwabbit]

I'm just saying the technology is there and should be doable for much less than $50k! $5k would be too much. It doesn't have to be high def, and you could reduce the frame rate. I would think those two things would increase battery life.
And yes, I agree that police gear weighs too much! There are places to cut weight without giving up function. Radios would be the first place I'd start... there has got to be a way to reduce the weight, especially when most officers work out of a patrol car. There's no reason for a radio to be much heavier than a smart phone.

coming from someone thats purchased not 1, but 2 separate body cameras to use on duty at my own expense, I'll say that it simply doesn't work like the GoPro commercial says it does.

My choices are:

1) go my entire shift with video and without recharging, but have video quality that makes facial recognition nearly impossible. esp if you work nights, its ~10feet at best
1a) bump up the quality to a viable format, and go at least an hour without my camera while it charges and/or uploads to clear memory

2) kick the quality up to the point where its incredible, and only turn the camera on manually when I exit the unit.
2a) if i forget and feces hits oscillator someone will ask why I'm so sketchy
2b) if i don't forget and record a bunch of traffic stops someone will ask why I'm managing the battery/memory so poorly

3) try to do the best I can with what i've got.

If you want to supply me with the hypothetical perfect-world camera, I'll gladly wear it. I'll echo the other leo's above and say that when i review my film, I've caught more than a couple of phone calls or rest room visits that I'm glad weren't public.

 

[Emperor]

Not to mention protecting innocent people and victims of crimes.

Exactly!

So, you're at the Aquarium in New Orleans with your family and two drug scumbags start shooting at each other and killing people when the cops get there, and you and your family are on the footage. Now they want you to be a witness!

Yeah; right!

Just setting up the legal protocol for protecting the innocent is going to take years. The ACLU is going to have a lot of issues with this one.

 

[PPBart]

...if Wilson had a camera it would've showed that he did everything right, and then what would the natives have as an excuse to riot?

"Don't try to confuse me with facts -- my mind is already made up!"

 

[Vermiform]

I think this just more of Obama & Co. pandering to his base of miscreants.



But it would be kind of humorous seeing the police turn the tables on the camera phone morons by repeatedly asking them on camera 'ARE YOU REFUSING TO COMPLY? ARE YOU REFUSING TO COMPLY?'

Laughed so hard I farted and got the dogs barking now.....

 

[oleheat]

The people who rioted and looted couldn't any care less about what actually happened, and they damn well know it- so this wouldn't change jack chit.

As far as accountability goes, I do not believe this would help. Video can be manipulated to support whatever agenda is being pushed- we see it all the time.
Don't look for many in the news media to air any video in it's entirety.



Someone needs to come up with the Looter Incineration Device for at-risk establishments. That would help- one group of looters at a time.

 

[bipolarbear]

A couple years back I was working on a project to mount a camera on my handgun for evidence purposes should I find myself in a position where I would be required to use it. I had designed something to start recording when removed from the holster, and stop recording when returned to the holster. I partnered with a friend who worked in law enforcement and we were going to design it with chain of custody for the video and create a company to install and maintain the infrastructure needed to catalog and house the video. Just as we were reaching into our pockets to pay a patent attorney Taser released a model with a camera mounted on it. We scrapped the idea.
Since then at least 4 companies are making really good weapon mounted cameras. The only missing part is infrastructure to catalog and store the video footage. With a weapon mounted camera, you will miss all the answers to "why did you feel the need to draw your weapon?" which may cause problems. But it would sure answer the question "were his hands up, or was he running at you?" sufficiently enough for the media to see they backed the wrong horse.
Couple a weapon mounted camera with a dashcam would probably cover a large percentage of the cases where video evidence would avoid media circuses like furgeson.

 

[madwabbit]

A couple years back I was working on a project to mount a camera on my handgun for evidence purposes should I find myself in a position where I would be required to use it. I had designed something to start recording when removed from the holster, and stop recording when returned to the holster. I partnered with a friend who worked in law enforcement and we were going to design it with chain of custody for the video and create a company to install and maintain the infrastructure needed to catalog and house the video. Just as we were reaching into our pockets to pay a patent attorney Taser released a model with a camera mounted on it. We scrapped the idea.
Since then at least 4 companies are making really good weapon mounted cameras. The only missing part is infrastructure to catalog and store the video footage. With a weapon mounted camera, you will miss all the answers to "why did you feel the need to draw your weapon?" which may cause problems. But it would sure answer the question "were his hands up, or was he running at you?" sufficiently enough for the media to see they backed the wrong horse.
Couple a weapon mounted camera with a dashcam would probably cover a large percentage of the cases where video evidence would avoid media circuses like furgeson.

sort of. It sounds great in theory, but in reality if you only see the few seconds after the firearm is drawn you've missed 99% of the story.

ie; the video clip shows you draw and shoot an unarmed man. what it didn't show was the 30 second tussle fighting over the weapon beforehand.

 

[Emperor]

But it would sure answer the question "were his hands up, or was he running at you?" sufficiently enough for the media to see they backed the wrong horse.

They never have to answer for anything they do, in the face of fact retrospectively! They couldn't care less about which calamity they supported yesterday! Some of them are still giving air time to the HUDS idiots.

Their perversion of the 1st Amendment protections is reprehensible! One of these days the right case will happen along when they can/will be held financially or legally responsible for their irresponsibility!

 

[bipolarbear]

sort of. It sounds great in theory, but in reality if you only see the few seconds after the firearm is drawn you've missed 99% of the story.

ie; the video clip shows you draw and shoot an unarmed man. what it didn't show was the 30 second tussle fighting over the weapon beforehand.

What would the video look like? If there was a tussle, and the LEO drew his weapon, 2 possible outcomes are
1. The perp keeps fighting with the officer, gets shot. Video shows at least some of the fight, Hopefully dashcam audio has some more information.
2. Perp complies with officers commands and stops being the aggressor. I dont believe an officer would shoot at this point.

That shows the importance of the audio from the dash cam. There is no single piece of equipment that will do it all. It would require a couple parts working together.

 

[madwabbit]

What would the video look like? If there was a tussle, and the LEO drew his weapon, 2 possible outcomes are
1. The perp keeps fighting with the officer, gets shot. Video shows at least some of the fight, Hopefully dashcam audio has some more information.
2. Perp complies with officers commands and stops being the aggressor. I dont believe an officer would shoot at this point.

That shows the importance of the audio from the dash cam. There is no single piece of equipment that will do it all. It would require a couple parts working together.

If it begins recording when it leaves the holster, the video clip would potentially be less than 2 seconds from point of record to shot fired. The way mine works is when I activate it, it records the video 30 seconds prior to me pushing the button and begins audio immediately. It's the best fit yet, other than video quality/battery/etc issues noted above.

 

[jmcrawf1]

And this will bring about myriads of unintended Constitutional issues. And who will pay for the thousands of subpoenas from defense attorneys requesting police footage from every dipshit that gets arrested for simple possession of marijuana during a traffic stop? And what about the civil suits that await those officers that use necessary force to quell an incident, but the scumbags family files a civil suit anyway?

If you put 50,000 body cameras on police officers in one shift to make sure they are staying in line with the rules, I suspect you will see 49,980 examples of footage showing belligerent, defiant, hostile, discourteous, and sometimes provocative suspected and actual criminals doing what criminals do when they get questioned or apprehended by police.

We have entrusted our law enforcement structure to keep and maintain the law since the 1800's with a code of honor and an oath. Now all of a sudden they can't be trusted? We're f'n doomed! These anti-establishment morons continue to chip away at righteousness.

The apologists and the excuse makers are watering down the Rule of Law here. Yep! Let's not talk about the real problem facing the country, let's just make it easier for the dregs to flourish!

It is almost unbelievable that we have allowed the country to be sent to the trash bin in only 238 years with most of the damage coming in the last 40!

This is the crux of the matter. Be careful what you wish for as far as body cameras go. I'm all for body cameras It won't change the way that the hundreds of cops that I know do their job. I already work with a dash cam that at least audio records the entire incident when you are out of camera view. The outcries of police abuse are just unfounded and not widespread. What the cameras will do will make cops robots. They will lose discretion. Oh that little tirade you launch when a cop issues you a ticket? Say hello to the footage in court. Oh you know the mayor, chief, sheriff, senator, congressman, myunclesdaddyscousinownsabusinessintownandpaysyoursalary, blah, blah, blah? Bam, say hello to the footage. It won't be long that a cop does his job by the book to some prominent citizen and body cameras will be an afterthought.

 

[Emperor]

What the cameras will do will make cops robots. They will lose discretion.

Or worse, how about them losing proactivity and going reactive to situations because of fear of reprisal?

 

[whodat247]

I understand the underlying point. There are some members of LE who abuse their power and it would be nice to have it on camera. But the amount of money and resources it would take would just be insane. Everyone just needs to think if they would be OK with everything they did at work recorded?

 

[olivs260]

Everyone just needs to think if they would be OK with everything they did at work recorded?

This. I can't see any issues coming up for officers until somebody issued a complaint about something they did, but oh-holy-hell the amount of scrutiny they would have on their daily routine after would be more than anyone should bear.

 

[whodat247]

This. I can't see any issues coming up for officers until somebody issued a complaint about something they did, but oh-holy-hell the amount of scrutiny they would have on their daily routine after would be more than anyone should bear.

It would affect how LE went about their daily job duties. And that's not something I think some people realize would not be good.

 

[JR1572]

http://www.policeone.com/police-pro...1687-Why-Obamas-bodycam-initiative-wont-work/

Here is the text of the article:

Why Obama's bodycam initiative won't work

Some projects can be funded on a one-and-done basis - providing agencies with body cameras is not one of them

On December 1, 2014, President Obama announced a new initiative to “strengthen community policing.” Part of it includes funding for local police agencies to purchase body cameras. At first examination, that might seem like a good idea, but it’s likely to fail for the same reason other well-intentioned federal funding programs have fizzled.

Well-Intentioned, Poorly Executed
Between 1998 and 2002, the Clinton administration funded its Community Oriented Police Services-Making Officer Redeployment Effective (COPS-MORE) with the claim that 100,000 more law enforcement officers would be on the street as a result. COPS-MORE never came close to funding 100K new officers, and of the ones it did pay for, some of them lost their jobs when the federal money ran out.

Some projects can be funded on a one-and-done basis. Radar and LIDAR units, tactical helmets, and portable radios have a decent service life, and when they do wear out or become obsolete, there may be budget money for replacements. Most of the president’s law enforcement advisors have no recent, if any, experience in the operation of a typical law enforcement agency. Those with this kind of experience and who have experimented with body cameras know an inconvenient truth (see what I did there?): the cost of the cameras is insignificant compared to the cost of the video storage.


New York Police Department Sgt. Joseph Freer holds a body camera during a news conference while Mayor Bill de Blasio listens. (AP Image)
Related Article:
Obama wants more cops wearing body cams
Related Resource:
Poll Results: Cops speak out about body cameras
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A quality body camera can cost around $1000, once you’ve bought the charging/docking cradles, maybe an extra battery or two, and the hardware necessary to mate the camera to the officer/user’s shirt, shoulder, or head. They’re reasonably sturdy devices, and should be good for a few years.

The gift that keeps on giving here is the video those cameras produce. That video consumes a lot of disk space, and there will be more every day.

Adding it Up
Here’s a calculation based on a 50-officer agency: say 60% of your cops work on a typical day, and each produces an average of four hours of video. If the video is encoded at 640x480 VGA (the format stored by the TASER AXON system, one of the more popular models) it’s going to take up 15-20 MB of space per minute (TASER may compress the video better than that— this is just an estimation). That’s just over 1 GB per hour, times four hours, times 30 cops, times three shifts: 360 GB per day, more than a terabyte every three days, ten terabytes per month.

How long do you want to keep that video on file before you delete it? If you say “forever,” get ready to write an increasingly large check each month. If you can live with, say, three months, that’s about 30 terabytes worth of storage, plus whatever you keep around for open cases.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is one of the largest cloud storage services in the world. Netflix uses them for their trove of streaming video. There are a lot of variables, but the figure I got for keeping this volume of video online with AWS, creating a new volume at the end of each sift, is $6260.79. Apply whatever multiples you might need for more cops or a longer retention interval.

It’s easy to see that the cost of purchasing the body cameras is almost trivial compared to the price tag for maintaining the video archive.

Even though it was another federal project, perhaps they have forgotten The Skylab Principle : If You Can’t Keep It Up, Don’t Do It (this may be lost on millennials, so I included a reference).

The Solution
There is a workable solution here. If the federal government was to provide archiving services for bodycam-generated video, the storage costs for local agencies would disappear. The U.S. Government is also a user of Amazon Web Services, but the feds are not slackers in the data storage department. The newly-constructed Utah Data Center, a facility of the National Security Agency, has an estimated storage capacity of 3 to 12 exabytes (one exabyte = one million terabytes).

The government could reduce the cost of the body cameras even more by contracting directly with one or more manufacturers. A 50-cop police department has a little bargaining power, but the negotiating position improves considerably when the lot order goes to 60,000 units.

All we need now is a cool name for the program, to be coined by ACONGPA, the Agency for the Creation Of Nifty Government Project Acronyms.

XXX

JR1572

 

[SpeedRacer]

This is the crux of the matter. Be careful what you wish for as far as body cameras go. I'm all for body cameras It won't change the way that the hundreds of cops that I know do their job. I already work with a dash cam that at least audio records the entire incident when you are out of camera view. The outcries of police abuse are just unfounded and not widespread. What the cameras will do will make cops robots. They will lose discretion. Oh that little tirade you launch when a cop issues you a ticket? Say hello to the footage in court. Oh you know the mayor, chief, sheriff, senator, congressman, myunclesdaddyscousinownsabusinessintownandpaysyoursalary, blah, blah, blah? Bam, say hello to the footage. It won't be long that a cop does his job by the book to some prominent citizen and body cameras will be an afterthought.

That's my thoughts as well. No more "man that cop was cool and let me off with a warning". On the flip side, a body cam could have prevented this whole Ferguson BS. I can see both sides of the argument, and think it's something that requires way more thought than "screw it let's slap bodycams on every cop."

I think the key will be some sort of dynamic factor for when it records. No, I don't want to see any of you taking a **** or dumping out little Jimmy's bag of weed and giving him a warning because he's crying like a little girl. I do want to see "sweet innocent unarmed black kid" when he's bum rushing a cop he just attacked before getting shot.

Maybe a heartbeat sensor...camera switches on with elevated heart rate, which I'm sure happens pretty damn quick during any escalation of an encounter. Or a massive Taco Bell dump...so I guess we're back at square one.

 

[ta2d_cop]

On the flip side, a body cam could have prevented this whole Ferguson BS.

Negative.......

It didn't prevent the decision of the grand jury in Ney York pissing off the professional victims of the "illegal choke hold" that wasn't illegal, nor a choke hold.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/04/us-usa-new-york-chokehold-idUSKCN0JH2BI20141204

 

[SpeedRacer]

Negative.......

It didn't prevent the decision of the grand jury in Ney York pissing off the professional victims of the "illegal choke hold" that wasn't illegal, nor a choke hold.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/04/us-usa-new-york-chokehold-idUSKCN0JH2BI20141204

Probably right. Still, if nothing else it woulda made for a great Liveleak video!

 

[JR1572]

Maybe a heartbeat sensor...camera switches on with elevated heart rate, which I'm sure happens pretty damn quick during any escalation of an encounter. Or a massive Taco Bell dump...so I guess we're back at square one.

Looks like we know what the next Advantage Group product will be...

JR1572