The makers of the taser — the electroshock weapon that discharges 50,000 volts into a person and results in the complete override of the central nervous system, causing an uncontrollable contraction of the muscle tissue — have a new piece of equipment they believe will revolutionize policing the police: an on-officer mounted camera.
The camera, named Akon Flex, can be mounted on various places, such as the side of a pair of glasses worn by an officer or on their shoulder, is designed to record audio and video footage from the police officer’s point of view.
The goal is to help lessen the amount of police brutality cases and accusations. While the number of police brutality cases that occurred in recent years is not known, the CATO Institute’s National Police Misconduct Reporting Project, updates a blog almost daily with reports from across the U.S. of police brutality.
Scott Greenwood is a national civil rights lawyer who works closely with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and police to establish rules about the use of on-body police cameras. Greenwood told Mint Press that he is “absolutely in favor of on-body cameras” and said the technology builds accountability for officers.
“I’m excited about this technology because I think it will make complaints about policing easier to resolve, safer and more professional,” he said, adding any potential issues should be addressed through “really strong policies” before the technology becomes mainstream.
Greenwood said a large benefit of the cameras is the use of the recorded video and audio in trials, where he says “it doesn’t matter what the officer testified to. If the video would show, for example, that the subject was acting in a menacing way, then it would be an open-and-shut case.”
But others, like Arizona ACLU Executive Director Alessandra Soler, are skeptical of how the cameras will actually be used. “There’s just so much up in the air at this point,” she said. “There are so many questions,” including what will be recorded, who will have access to the video and audio recorded, and more.
Unlimited public access?
One question raised by people like Josh Wolf, a journalist and documentary filmmaker, is the amount of access the public will have to these videos. “I can tell you with much certainty that the public will not have free reign access to the videos,” he said.
Wolf, who was imprisoned for 266 days for not handing over video he took of a protest in San Francisco to the police — the longest sentence for any U.S. journalist — said it’s important that police behavior is filmed, specifically police misbehavior, but cautioned that the technology had to be used correctly in order to be effective.
Yet others, like Carlos Miller, who has written for more than six years about how to record the police in public for his website, Photography is Not a Crime (PINAC), says he highly recommends police officers wear cameras. Miller said he is not surprised the technology has become accessible to law enforcement, and said “we’ll all be wearing cameras eventually. The more cameras the better.”
Miller said that because the average citizen can upload videos to YouTube quite easily, there was an overwhelmingly majority of the public that see examples of officers abusing their power and people. People are waking up and realizing that police officers are overly aggressive, bullies — many of whom are unprofessional.
Greenwood added that from his perspective, this technology has the best chance to end the old “he said, she said” argument or accusation and denial, and said the public and the media will have much greater knowledge of what officers do on the job.
But some, like Wolf, remain skeptical of how this technology will actually be used.
“When police film themselves, is that efficient when compared to, say, civilian gathered footage?” Wolf hypothetically asked. “It’s almost a parallel to a tree falling in a forest,” he said, explaining that if police film an officer beating a person, but the public never sees it, does it matter? Who gets to see the footage?
Wolf said a concern he has about the on-body cameras is whether or not the video and audio footage will be uploaded immediately. Since the technology used by police officers doesn’t upload a video immediately to a server — video and audio collected by Akon Flex are uploaded to a web service called Evidence.com at the end of an officer’s shift — Wolf is not convinced an officer wouldn’t try to hide the evidence.
“My biggest concern is if an officer’s acts inappropriately, it may be more defensible to destroy the camera,” he said. He said, based on his understanding of how the technology worked, police officers would simply have to smash the camera or destroy the flash drive storage to destroy evidence.
Miller shares this same concern. He told Mint Press that at an Occupy Oakland protest, police were equipped with on-body cameras, but the officers didn’t turn them on. “There are a lot of instances where cops can turn the cameras on and off,” he said. “It creates a big issue because obviously we can expect cops to turn it off when they do things like go to the restroom, but there has to be policy in place that police leave the camera on while they are on duty.”
“We’re in a situation where we can’t trust a lot of officers,” Miller said. “I want to, but officers are losing credibility and it’s in their hands only.”
Destroying evidence
Another concern for Wolf are instances of police brutality that never make it to court, despite being caught on film. He gave an example of police officers beating up a random homeless person. “A homeless person can’t bring a lawsuit against the police,” he said, meaning many cases may continue to go unnoticed by the public. Wolf said in order for the press to “illuminate this injustice,” the public has to be able to review this footage.
Wolf explained that if there was a live video stream system being fed to the police and public, his concerns would be diminished. “All of these issues come down to who controls the footage and who has access to the footage.”
Greenwood agrees access to the video is important, and said he can easily see a day where officers involved in a shooting will want the video they took shown on the evening news so the public understands what happened.
“You gotta be a pretty bad apple if you don’t want to give the public access to the video,” he said. Greenwood stressed the importance of remembering that not every video will be available to the public even with a public records request, but said there were other ways for the public and the media to gather information.
He gave an example of an officer involved in a hypothetical shooting. The video may not be available to the public because it’s a high-profile case, but Greenwood said there should be no reason the public and the media can’t review all video footage involving that specific officer over the last few years.
“We should all want the truth,” Miller said, “so let the cameras come on.” Miller also pointed out that for the first time in history, “little brother” was watching “big brother” by recording officers in public settings, but says the cops are “catching on” now.
So what about those officers who take away or damage cell phones or video cameras being used by regular citizens to record officers in public?
Miller says citizens have the right to record, and says the battle will likely continue over rights to record people in public. He stressed that citizens have to establish their rights and rapport with cops and the public has to know their rights when it comes to using technology in public.
He said that with the popularity of the Internet in recent years, cops have been put in an uncomfortable and unknown situation because they can’t control their message anymore. “They had become accustomed to the media showing up after an event,” he said, “now anybody can catch something at any time with their camera.”
And since more people are learning and realizing their rights, police are not able to get away with things like they used to be.
On-body camera trials
The first police department in the U.S. to implement the cameras used with tasers is the Mesa, Ariz., police department. Mesa is about 20 minutes from Taser’s Scottsdale, Ariz., headquarters.
An investment in the technology is quite expensive for local governments as they have struggled with tightened budgets as a result of the recession, but cities like Mesa believe that the investment could have a quick payoff if they can defend an officer against a lawsuit.
It’s not known how much Mesa spends on defending police officers each year against claims of police brutality or how much the city has to pay in lawsuits, but just one false arrest after a traffic incident last year cost the city $62,500 to settle.