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Originally Posted by Sooner or later
Tough gig. I applaud your service.
Big city? Little city?
Crime rate?
Perception of the operation? Internally and externally?
Your current city or another?
Even answering those questions probably won't help me much....
That said. Openness, honesty, and 100% body cams. Oh, don't forget openness and honestly.
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Thank you. I work for a large agency in Los Angeles with many substations. It will be one of the substations.
Body cams are the future, but there are some inherent issues that the public may or may not have considered. The biggest gain is the viewpoint of the officer during critical incidents. It shows a perspective of the incident but does not capture the additional information. It does help clarify what law enforcement did well and what was not done in the best interest of public safety and trust. However, there is another negative portion that the majority has not fully examined. If an officer has the camera on full-time, he will regularly enter people's homes as results of calls for service. Inside the/your home, everything is recorded. If you have children, other adults, elderly people, or whomever inside the home, their image will be recorded. In some cases, people feel comfortable dressing in manners while inside their home that they would not go into public. For example, a male wearing boxers or a woman in a nightgown, or whatever else you can imagine. During a "Freedom of Information Act" request, anyone can request footage from the officer's cameras. These videos would be required to be released. Some of the images would have to be blurred (juveniles) prior to release, but that would require someone to view the entire footage in its entirety. Now imagine an individual requesting footage for multiple officers over the course of a month...or a year....or longer. How would that footage be redacted? There is software out there that may have the capability of blurring some of the images, but it has not been perfected as of yet.
As for myself, I would not want the interior of my home to be recorded or my family members recorded and provided to the public.
This is something that has to be explored as technology evolves.
I appreciate your input!