A Baltimore police officer accidentally recorded himself planting drugs
vox.com
vox.com
Why do we even allow cops on duty with the camera off? Why do we give them the choice of when it will be turned on?
Apart from going to the washroom, or going off duty to eat lunch, I say the cameras should record constantly.
Presumably argued as concern for the privacy of the police themselves. I can imagine the police unions fighting tooth and nail to maintain the right to decide when cameras are recording because otherwise there is going to be a lot of crap like this for them to deal with.
Personally, I think they should always be on, always be recording both audio and video, and continuously uploading the footage to servers controlled by a third party agency that is not in the direct or indirect control of the local police or district attorney's office. Footage would be archived for a preset amount of time (1 year? 5 years?) and then destroyed (by deleting the crypto key that's used to encrypt it). During the "active" window either the prosecutor or the defendant could request access to any or all footage of the police around the timeline of an incident.
Outside of that, it should require a warrant to view the footage. The goal isn't to turn this into a fishing expedition to turn over prior dirt on the police that apprehended you. An investigation like that by internal affairs would require a warrant as well.
I'm not sure what the duration answer is, hence the guesses as examples. I don't think it should be indefinite either. Again, the problem we're solving is providing evidence of what occurred at a specific incident, not retroactively creating a Truman Show out of the lives of any involved police.
IMHO, working in law enforcement requires you give up some of your privacy rights in exchange for a local monopoly on the use of force. It shouldn't mean you lose all of them permanently.
> Additionally, unless there was some guaranteed way to permanently prevent the destruction of video marked “of interest”, the video could be destroyed simply through delaying tactics by the force under investigation.
That's why I specifically call out having an entirely separate entity control the storage and dissemination. The video can't be public by default for a host of reasons (for starters, the privacy of both the police and non-police that are recorded) but it also shouldn't be able to be held hostage by the law enforcement bodies that may be held accountable by it.
I don't understand this objection. Police officers are generally presumed to be honest by jurors. If there is evidence that this presumption is unreasonable, then it is definitely relevant.
Do you expect every recording, video, audio, and statement made by a police officer involved in a case, at any point in his service, and unrelated to the crime at hand, to be provided to the defense?
Going through someone's history to find dirt is the definition of a fishing expedition. With enough footage, speech, and actions, you could find incriminating evidence on anybody.
If there's accusations that a police officer is dishonest, lying under oath, planting evidence, or really anything else illegal, then internal affairs should be investigating them. They'd require a warrant just like anybody else to get access to the historical records (and I think they should get it). But not just any random person that wants to dig dirt on Officer Joe because he busted him for public urination.
Unfortunately it's wishful thinking / cipherpunk porn to imagine a world where that actually happens.
In reality the videos would probably be stored in plaintext, there wouldn't be viable/tested backups of them, there would be no log of who has access to them (the log would exist but it wouldn't log actual access), an insane number of contractors working for the department of justice would have access to all the videos (though most wouldn't realize it) rather than it being on a need to know basis, and just about every other infosec / PII issue you can imagine would apply as well.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir%27s_Secret_Sharing
As a matter of evidence, in many cases if one has a duty to preserve evidence yet fails in that duty, then a Judge may draw an negative inference against the bearer.
In many common law jurisdictions a Judge must draw such an inference, for example with the chain of custody in criminal cases.
A negative inference generally takes the form of a rebuttable presumption. For example, in the case of the chain of custody, if the police lose possession of evidence then the court is entitled (obliged in certain cases) to presume that it was tampered with.
In the case of body cameras, I would argue that a police officer has failed in an analogous duty — namely to employ a device that would create an objective contemporaneous audio/video record of events that does not hinder the ability of a police officer to perform their other duties.
Soon, I would hope and expect, the absence of body camera evidence will draw a negative inference against police.
We may not be there yet, because law is a slow moving — progressed by individual cases that can take years to work through the system of appeals that create persuasive or binding precedents, but this is almost certainly the direction I believe the law properly should take.
In my humble opinion, based on the examples I have seen, the people who benefit the most from this, by far, are good police officers that are naturally inclined to adhere to proper ethical and constructive behaviour of policing (such as those set out in the Peelian principles).
IAAL, but the above is not legal advice.
Because nobody in their right mind is going to snitch while obviously on camera. You can call them "informants" or whatever, but cops rely on community sources for what's going on all the time. Those are informal relationships and documenting them on camera erodes trust of the folks giving up info.
I think a lot of our problems with police in the US stem from the fact that they are not protectors of the public so much as they are enforcers of government policy. They have strayed from the original mission, in other words. Were we to treat them no differently than regular citizens, instead of giving them elevated status as "King's Men" we might fix the underlying problem instead of using technology as a band-aid to regulate their behavior. It's a hard, sometimes dangerous job, but my answer to that is, if you can't accept that, then don't do it.
Like many others, I think it should be a requirement of the job. If you are on duty, it is recording. You are paid to do the job. No different than an employer recording web traffic IMO, they get to see what you are doing while they are paying you. If questions come up, they can review the evidence. If you don't like it, don't take that job.
If you don't practice singing, and never sing, you're not a singer, and if it was written in your passport that you are anyway that would just show that letters can't help the order they get arranged in. If we put up with this kind of stuff, we're not being citizens in any sense I would find valuable, no matter what else we might do or enjoy.
For every cop planting evidence and being as dumb about it as this one, how many are never found out? How many people rot in jail as we speak or are dead because of that? And does anyone remember Colin Powell's WMD presentation in front of the UN? So they didn't "plant evidence", but really, if this is the top, and if it's accepted by millions of people, what's a cop planting some drugs or killing some incapacitated people in self-defense? I'm not saying one excuses the other, but the fish does stink from the head, too.
I do appreciate that it's complex though - we can ask what the point of cameras is if they're not recording, which is reasonable, but there are also plausible scenarios where they could cause problems.
Cameras work out exactly as advocates said they would - exposing how corrupt police forces can be. Police officers not turning on their cameras or judges disregarding clear evidence is what's not working out.
Judges and DAs side with the cops because there is no real impartiality. One protects the other because it's a machine designed for domination of the citizenry and it works extremely well. Look how many cases get plead out instead of going to trial.
I don't hate cops or anything, I just see the system for what it is. I don't know how we do better, but it's tiring to watch. It's the same way I feel about our Congress--all these establishment politicians doing work for big donors and working against the interests of the public.
The system is stacked in favor of police, from top to bottom. It's an endless stream of travesties. It's enough to turn an optimist into a cynic.
I've heard about drugs being planted before, but I think there was always some doubt in my mind that it was just an excuse by those being prosecuted. This is the first time I've seen solid evidence that it's real. That is fucking terrible! How many times has this happened and put innocent people in prison? We can't let this continue to happen when the cameras are off. We need these cameras everywhere and we need them on all the time.
the police think are they fighting a war where people don't wear uniforms and intermix freely. part of their job is to put on one side of the front or the other, a citizen or a criminal. once you are determined to be a criminal the goal is to first and foremost instill fear and compliance. after that as many bad people as possible should be sent away - cleaning up the streets.
unless this context is changed, extra-legal tactics like planting drugs and overt police brutality won't go away. and if those things continue to be part of the job, then obviously cameras aren't acceptable.
unfortunately, as horrified as i am, i'm not sure i can judge this war perspective as unconditionally wrong.
The level of crime we tolerate from "law enforcement" is astonishing. Why do people no longer care about justice?
I'm not sure if that's the case. The article seems to be saying that they did actually find the drugs in the alley, and the officer was essentially recreating the finding of the drugs using his body camera. Obviously that isn't an acceptable way of using the body camera, and it has the unfortunate effect of causing the case of a potentially guilty drug-dealer to be dropped.
Edit: In the US, people are innocent until proven guilty.
I'm saying it was possibly illegal but not amoral. There is a difference. Compare to planting drugs to frame someone innocent.
It seems like a minimal step if you want to keep even the pretense of justice.
An "unsafe" conviction is not the same as proof positive of innocence, just no longer meeting the necessary standard of proof. It may be necessary to overturn a number of convictions but isn't easy.
You seem angry, I'm absolutely not trying to apologize for this behaviour. But it is a mess, and the consequences of the mess ought to be severe so that it doesn't happen.
I've watched lots of youtube videos of rock hunters recreating their discoveries on camera for the sake of drama and upvotes, often admitting it. Police are surely affected by similar incentives.
The above argument is brought to you by someone who thinks that all drugs should be legalized, and that all cops who work to enforce drug laws are acting immorally.
Seems like most people agree that this behavior is bogus, and that cops shouldn't be fabricating or recreating evidence. And even if some do-gooder was doing so innocently, they probably shouldn't forget to mention that that video was a recreation, not actual evidence. That's an oops that cop and his dept will have to address while they're making excuses for it.
I understand that you say you still believe the officer was wrong to do so, but I think this should be sufficient evidence to assume innocence here.
Of course he didn't. Don't hide your head in the sand.