Posted on 12/04/2015 8:15:45 AM PST by redreno
As a parade of San Francisco cops questioned the police commission last night about why the city might not trust them to view footage from the body cameras they’d soon be required to wear on duty, five of their colleagues were across town, shooting an allegedly knife-wielding man.
It was a hell of a night all around.
The shooting happened roughly an hour before the commission meeting, calling Police Chief Greg Suhr away from City Hall. There was plenty of blue on display without him, though: Cops were lined up around the bend trying to convince the commissioners to see things their way.
Most of the particulars of the soon-to-be-enacted body camera protocol have been settled: the SFPD is definitely getting cameras, and officers will be required to turn them on during almost any incident that could get them into trouble.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfweekly.com ...
hmmmmm.....
Well, you ARE in San Francisco and YOU are the enemy.
In San Fransicko, the criminals and insane run things and normal people are considered deviants. Inspector Harry Callahan really TRIED to clean up that city about 40 years ago.
Thin blue line causes appropriate consequence. Problem Officers who personally caused said consequences whine a lot. Officers who are honest and competent continue to go quietly about their jobs.
See, I can write this in one paragraph.
Next story.
Hmmm...can we make all public sector employees wear body cams while they are at work?
This could be fun. Especially if we could get a live feed.
I’ve been demanding for a while that elected officials be forced to wear body cameras.
If you have the authority of the State behind you, you are *NOT* innocent until proven guilty.
I don’t dislike cops; I know many I like and trust. But if you have a badge and a gun and your word against mine means I pay the fine or do the time, you are already privileged. If you use violence against someone under the authority of the law I don’t see why you get the same protections as a “citizen”. With privileges should always come greater responsibility.
It’s not just if some competently continue to go quietly about their jobs, if they KNOW about the bad cops and don’t do anything they are just as bad and should face the same consequences.
IMHO
Most places I’ve worked at have cameras.
The cameras should be on when ever they are on duty.
And if they complain about "privacy" tell them that convenience store clerks have cameras on them at all times without the pay, power or bennies they get.
Any cop objecting to wearing the cameras just makes me more convinced that they need to wear them!
What are they trying to hide???
Police power demands watching.
“The cameras should be on when ever they are on duty.”
That’s not the most technically feasible thing at the moment, due to battery and data storage issues.
The cause of a LOT of these problems are the unions, from crazy "officer safety" work rules to the type of training the officers receive.
This I doubt. A battery pack can be worn on the belt and the data storage can be a flash drive the size of a wallet.
“A battery pack can be worn on the belt and the data storage can be a flash drive the size of a wallet.”
Batteries don’t last very long when a device is being constantly used, flash drives only hold so much data, and videos of any usable quality take a HUGE amount of storage.
Sure, that’s what their advertising says, but if you check some reviews, you’ll see the battery actually only lasts 5 hours unless get an additional battery, and I’m sure that claim to store “12 hours” of video is not at full resolution or standard video speed. There’s no way they could store 12 hours of full speed, HD video on 16GB.
in my observations, sf police are used to getting and using a lot of latitude. inside that latitude is some abuse. there are even relatively recent examples in the public record. and that does not count the times when a body camera would make a difference.
oakland police tend to be much worse, but the neighborhoods are also much worse, and oakland is going through a more severe revenue crisis— more revenue for pensions, including police pensions, less revenue for salaries including police salaries.
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