Recording Police Misconduct Is Just the Beginning: New at Reason

Police monitoring apps are getting better and better at keeping an eye on officialdom. But some now aspire to reduce the need for police at all.

J.D. Tuccille writes:

In a world in which police don’t just bristle at recordings of their activities, but also threaten curious bystanders and delete inconvenient evidence, a new generation of mobile apps is making it easier for people to work together to monitor the cops—and maybe even replace them.

The official line may be that it’s all “standard procedure,” but I’ll take a wild guess that Fort Collins, Colorado, police are not entirely thrilled about a video of one of their “progressive and professional” officers slamming a woman to the ground during a dispute outside a bar. Nor are Chicago cops delighted to have to explain in court a video of one of their officers shooting a teen in the back. And North Miami police have their hands full with a hard-to-fathom recording of a cop shooting the unarmed caretaker of an autistic man.

Such recordings are sufficiently awkward that police often refuse to use officially issued recording equipment to capture their interactions with the public—Los Angeles officers are habitually forgetful when it comes to using the cameras that are strapped to their bodies. Denver has had a similar problem, along with the sheriff’s department in Alameda County, California, and agencies elsewhere.

And when citizens record them, police have a bad habit of illegally ordering them to stop, and even seizing devices and deleting inconvenient evidence.

There’s not much the average person can do about cops who disable or damage cameras they’ve been issued. But private recordings are increasingly ubiquitous, and a bit more resistant to policy or police action.

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