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Comment by jdreaver | Hacker News Reader

I see absolutely no reason why police shouldn't wear cameras. It keeps all parties honest. I just hope they don't "lose the recording" when it conveniences the police the most.

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Hopefully some day the absence of these videos of police encounters will be evidence in favor of the defendant. Police will be assumed to be lying about any encounter without a recording.

Presuming someone to be lying is a huge presumption. Innocent until proven guilty should be a rule used in all cases (in the case of a 'lying' police officer, the charge is perjury).

If they can prove neglect of the evidence or deliberate tampering, of course, that would be another story.

Eh it's not about perjury, it's about due process and assymetry of power. The police have the means to record everything at little cost and with no reasonable excuse to not do it. The absence of recordings is a reasonable indicator that the cops are hiding things.

We expect the state to follow processes strictly. The penalty for failure to do so isn't personal incarceration for the prosecutors or police, but rather failure of their case. This seems like a tradeoff that works in practice.

i remember being on a jury in a case that involved child abduction, the police did not record the interviews they conducted with the child after it had been rescued. i talked to the prosecutor afterwards about it and they said it's to easy over analyze every word said and twist it to appear as something else. to easy for a defence to say they were leading the witness and therefore the recording should be thrown out. remember there was video of the Rodney King beating. the defendants slowed it down and pointed out on each frame actions that King supposedly did that were threatening to the officers beating him.

recording everything is not a panacea. not having everything recorded a sign of nefarious actions.

This amounts to the "you can't handle the truth!" argument. It may be true that the average citizen, and thus the average jury member, is unaware of what ethically-conducted police work looks like. But that doesn't seem to constitute an argument that keeping everyone in the dark about what average police work looks like is an overall good thing.

The burden of proof is on the officer here. If he can't prove his claims against the defendant then they should be considered innocent.

Of course, but "assuming the officer is lying" is something completely different.

Assuming the defendant is lying is just as bad. Evidence is king.

Rather than "police will be assumed to be lying", I think the appropriate approach is "compare the stories told by both sides for plausibility, considering what you know about the world and what you can tell about the character of those involved".

So when the police officer says "And then he shoved me off the bridge into the stream. I don't have a recording because the camera shorted out." you find that plausible. When the citizen says "After I filed the complaint, officer Briggs just 'happened' to stop my car a block from my home... and that was the one day when there was an 'accident' with his recording device." that's fairly persuasive.

First, I think wearing cameras protect law enforcement persons from wrongful complaints that can damage their careers.

It's still better to have them wear cameras. They can definitely "lose the recording", but what do you think the jury will do?

There are good reasons, such as ensuring privacy, dealing with informants, what happens to the video?

I've never seen anyone propose that undercover officers or detectives wear cameras, just the officers that interact with the public on a daily basis as part of their job. Street cops and SWAT.

If street cops meet with informants, change the policy to have them meet with detectives.

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