![]() ![]() We have yet to fully explore the Fourth Amendment ramifications of this type of constant recording of citizens by police officers. Police enter areas of this type every day.Īlso, the recent scandals surrounding NSA surveillance of telephone and Internet activity has already demonstrated the nation's uneasiness about the proliferation of digital surveillance capacity among law enforcement under the guise of keeping us safe. The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable search and seizure and many jurisdictions prohibit recording of a person without his or her consent if the surveillance takes place in an area of expected privacy. In addition to their ineffectiveness, the information captured by body cameras raises serious questions about citizen privacy. This is the textbook definition of impunity. For the officers involved, there is a minuscule chance of either serving time in jail or paying a dime in damages, regardless of whether the incident is recorded. Even in civil suits, officers are never personally financially responsible for paying for damages - state and local governments cover it for them. In an environment where state excessive force laws make criminal conviction of police officers for murder almost impossible, a police officer literally has nothing to lose by killing unarmed black men. Want more of our free, weekly newsletters in your inbox? Let’s get started. Their footage provides a one-sided view of the interaction, allowing outsiders to scrutinize the citizens' every move, but leaving them blind to the police officers' behavior. Pinned to officers' chests, these cameras face outward - capturing the behavior of citizens, but not of the police. Ultimately, body cameras could do more harm than good to the cause of protecting citizens from police violence. Few entities are given so much authority with so little accountability. Meanwhile, more than 2,700 homicides by law enforcement were deemed justified. Officers are rarely charged in these kinds of incidents, whether there's video evidence or not.ĭuring the seven years ending in 2011, just 41 police officers were charged with murder or manslaughter after shootings, according to FBI statistics compiled by the Wall Street Journal. His wife filmed the fatal incident on her cellphone, but the district attorney said the officers' actions were justified. And earlier this year, a man in Oklahoma stopped breathing in a movie theater parking lot after several police officers forced him to the ground when he refused to hand over his ID. In September, an Ohio grand jury failed to indict the police officers who killed John Crawford in a Wal-Mart, where he had picked up an air rifle from the shelf. It's not the first time this has happened. In the Garner case, the cellphone video provided a far superior view of what happened than a body camera would have, and still police suffered no criminal consequences.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |