Police Body Cameras Are Pointless Unless Cops Use Them Correctly

The Huffington Post:

Officers involved in at least two controversial fatal police shootings this month failed to activate their body-worn cameras, leaving critical gaps in evidence that threaten to undermine the primary purpose of the devices.

Police in Charlotte, North Carolina, have come under fire for how they have handled video recordings related to the shooting death of Keith Lamont Scott, a 43-year-old black man killed by an officer on Sept. 20. The department’s patrol division is equipped with body cameras, but its tactical division ― to which many of the involved officers belong ― is not.

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It remains to be seen how ― or if ― they’ll be punished for their missteps. But there are legitimate extenuating factors that could make police wary of setting concrete standards for discipline.

“It’s hard to say officers should definitely get punished if they don’t turn it on ― there’s limited storage capacity, for example, so some footage might not get recorded,” said Phillip Atiba Goff, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and president of the school’s Center for Policing Equity.

Read the whole story: The Huffington Post