Los Angeles Police Testing On-Body Cameras – Hooray!

Yesterday, Reason 24/7 noted the Los Angeles
Times article reporting on that city’s police department’s
trial deployment of body-worn cameras on 30 foot patrol officers.
Requiring police officers is a great idea. As the LA Times
noted officers have already
reported good results:

LAPD Officer Jesus Toris said people notice the cameras.

“People have a different reaction when you approach them, so it
does help,” he said.

Supporters of the on-body cameras said the goal is to eventually
have them for the entire Los Angeles force, ultimately saving the
city millions in lawsuits.

“You wind up getting sued or wind up getting a complaint or
something like that, it could have been alleviated had we had audio
and video,” LAPD Sgt. James Sterling said.

Police Chief Charlie Beck has said the addition of on-body
cameras will be a helpful investigative and accountability tool, as
well as a less expensive option than in-car video…

“The nice thing about this is there’s a real consensus among
some of the biggest critics of the department and the officers and
the union that they all want this transparency,” said [LA mayor
Eric] Garcetti. “Everybody’s convinced, look, this is going to show
how bad the officers are or how good they are.”

One quibble – the Times reports that the police intend
to retain the video for five years. That is way too long.  I
outlined more reasonable policies in my article, “Watched
Cops Are Polite Cops“:

…police officers should be subject to stiff disciplinary
sanctions if they fail to turn their cameras on each time they
interact with the public. In addition, items obtained during an
unrecorded encounter should be deemed a violation of the subject’s
Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure and
excluded as evidence, unless there were extenuating circumstances,
such as a broken camera. Similarly, failure to record an incident
for which a patrolman is accused of misconduct should create a
presumption against that officer.

Officer-worn video cameras do have the potential to violate the
privacy of citizens. After all, the police frequently deal with
people who are having one of the worst days of their lives. Police
often enter people’s houses to investigate disturbances and
disputes. In such cases, video of someone’s metaphorical (or
literal) dirty laundry is nobody else’s business.

Consequently, Stanley argues that strong rules regarding the
retention, use, and disclosure of videos from police-worn cameras
must be established and enforced. For example, videos should be
retained for no more than 30 to 60 days, unless flagged. Of course,
if the video contains evidence of a crime it should be retained
just as any other evidence would be. Flagging would also occur for
any incident involving force or that produces a citizen complaint.
With the appropriate privacy protections in place, very little of
police-recorded video would ever be retained or viewed.

Body-worn cameras should soon become standard equipment for all
police officers.