Mike Brown Law

[DigitalDrifter]

I think this is a good idea for cops to wear cameras, but I wouldn't name the law after a thief and bully.

Petition asking cops to wear body cameras passes 100K

FERGUSON, Mo. — A petition asking the White House to look into requiring all state, county and local police to wear lapel cameras has reached 100,000 signatures.
Obama administration officials have said they will respond to petitions that reach that threshold.
Late Tuesday, the petition, created by "J.C." of Hephzibah, Ga., reached the required number. As of noon Wednesday, it had more than 128,000 signatures.
Mike Brown Law. Requires all state, county, and local police to wear a camera.

Create a bill, sign into law, and set aside funds to require all state, county and local police to wear a camera. Due to the latest accounts of deadly encounters with police, We the People, petition for the Mike Brown Law. The law shall be made in an effort to not only detour police misconduct (i.e. brutality, profiling, abuse of power) but to ensure that all police are following procedure and to remove all question from normally questionable police encounters as well as help to hold all parties within a police investigation accountable for their actions.
While the White House's We the People Web page allows anyone 13 and older to create and sign a petition to the government, it doesn't guarantee any action.
If a petition reaches 150 signatures within 30 days, it becomes searchable on the site. If it reaches 100,000 signatures within another 30 days, administration officials say they will respond to the petition. The police camera petition was created Aug. 13.
For a law to be passed, a Congress member would have to create a bill, have it pass committees within the House and Senate, have it pass votes of the full House and Senate and have the president sign it. Any initiative that has a cost associated with it would need to have a funding source.
St. Louis native Kirk Siefert, who now lives in University City, Mo., started another petition on Change.org asking for St. Louis area police officers to wear body cameras. As of mid-day Wednesday, it had more than 45,000 signatures.​

Petition asking cops to wear body cameras passes 100K

 

[Stephanie]

I talked about those in another thread. I saw it on segment on the news.

I don't have a problem with them wearing them

 

[Jackson]

Can you imagine the cost? But the Police would know their every move would be taped. Very interesting.

Private conversations would be taped also because they would not have the luxury of being able to turn the cameras on and off.

Would like to hear from police officers what they think of this.

 

[DigitalDrifter]

Can you imagine the cost? But the Police would know their every move would be taped. Very interesting.

Private conversations would be taped also because they would not have the luxury of being able to turn the cameras on and off.

Would like to hear from police officers what they think of this.

I'm sure it wouldn't be cheap to outfit every cop in the country.

Like dash cams, this would probably exonerate cops much more often than it would get them in trouble.

 

[Moonglow]

Let's implant a chip so we can follow their movements also...

 

[DigitalDrifter]

Let's implant a chip so we can follow their movements also...

They already have those.

 

[Tresha91203]

There are legal issues with recording sound I believe, at least in most states. Otherwise, I think it is a great idea. It protects everyone. I bet it wouldn't be as expensive if we could get insurance costs reduced. It would certainly reduce bad cops and lawsuits. Win-win.

 

[DigitalDrifter]

There are legal issues with recording sound I believe, at least in most states. Otherwise, I think it is a great idea. It protects everyone. I bet it wouldn't be as expensive if we could get insurance costs reduced. It would certainly reduce bad cops and lawsuits. Win-win.

Do the police dash cams also record audio ?

 

[Tresha91203]

Not sure about dash cams, but I read or saw somewhere that the body cams can. The cop has to turn it on and off and something I didn't quite get about it backing up 30 seconds. I meant to check that out because I didn't undrrstand the reason or value of the 30 seconds, but got distracted and never did.

Oooh shiney!

 

[Peach]

Can you imagine the cost? But the Police would know their every move would be taped. Very interesting.

Private conversations would be taped also because they would not have the luxury of being able to turn the cameras on and off.

Would like to hear from police officers what they think of this.

I'm sure it wouldn't be cheap to outfit every cop in the country.

Like dash cams, this would probably exonerate cops much more often than it would get them in trouble.

I agree, and think dash cams are a necessity. More often than not, LE will be found to not done as accusers say..............................recently, an individual swore they had severely beaten........all the officer is alleged to have said is...."if you report this, it'll be in the paper". Court found the claim to lack credibity, but it cost money to prove that fact.

 

[Katzndogz]

If police were covered in cams from head to toe it wouldn't help. The video of Michael Brown throttling the clerk was a racist attempt to smear the boy's name. Any video showing him smashing the cop's face in would be the same thing.

 

[TheOldSchool]

Absolutely stick some cameras on them. Every pro-second amendment righty should be behind this.

 

[EverCurious]

Not sure about dash cams, but I read or saw somewhere that the body cams can. The cop has to turn it on and off and something I didn't quite get about it backing up 30 seconds. I meant to check that out because I didn't undrrstand the reason or value of the 30 seconds, but got distracted and never did.

Oooh shiney!

Basically the camera is on and recording at all times, but it "remembers" only x seconds of information before looping and overwriting those frames. When one turns on the recording it actually starts saving the recording in full. 30s isn't necessarily significant to anything, but is more likely the manufacturers compromise between battery/power consumption, temporary recording memory allotment, and the camera's ability to start recording the exact moment you hit the button (as apposed to missing the few moments it takes you to push the button.) One could probably buy any high end camera and have the manufacturer program in any backward recording time they wished - the camera I used to record my son's football games was able to go back a full minute so as not to miss any of the action.

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I am not opposed to the idea of lapel cameras, though as it's been mentioned the ability/need to turn them on and off would become an issue as any officer who, in the heat of the moment, forgot to start recording would not resolve the problem it was intended to resolve. We would have to invest in a more advanced monitoring system that could record constantly and transmit that information via a wireless connection to a hard drive (either tamperproof in the car or at a police station database) for it to be completely effective in resolving the issues it is being presented to resolve.

Keep in mind that Ferguson PD couldn't even afford the 3k to install their dash cams, they certainly would not have the funding to install this state of the art system. I personally would not have a problem paying the extra taxes to do all that because it ultimately protects everyone, but I imagine a lot would reject it as an unnecessary expense.

 

[Tresha91203]

@EverCurious Thank you for the explanation. That makes sense. I understand the money issue. Lawsuits are far more expensive though and ever on the horizon.

 

[EverCurious]

@EverCurious Thank you for the explanation. That makes sense. I understand the money issue. Lawsuits are far more expensive though and ever on the horizon.

I agree with you there, and it's more than the cost of lawsuits, it is also perception induced difficulties that occur whenever there is a questionable occurrence as well.