no matter how much the cop union hates it.
Recent incidents of police officers turning off their body cams have state lawmakers taking actions. Some wish to see officers being charged with felonies if they turn off their body cameras in bad faith.
...
Hardaway is now talking about a proposed bill that would make it a felony offense for an officer to turn off or disable a recording device with the intent to obstruct justice.
This comes after two Memphis Police officers were suspended last week for turning off their body cams after the chase and shooting of Martavious Banks in September.
Whole idea of the cameras is that there'll be some actual record of what happened; it may not be complete/perfect, but it'll be far better than nothing.
So why objections?
Sgt. Matt Cunningham with the Memphis Police Association says Memphis officers are already worrying about everything going on with a scene and dealing with a possible criminal prosecution, is just too much.
"To add one more stressor to officers, we've had a lot of officers say this would be the straw that would break the camel's back, and they would find another line of work," said Cunningham.
At this point, I have to say 'Tough shit, guy'. The cameras are there for two reasons:
To prove honest cops innocent when they're accused of crap they didn't do,
and
To at least greatly lower the chances of bad cops continuing to get away with corrupt actions.
For cops to deliberately turn the cameras off during a contact/incident is seen as happening for one reason: because dirty cops don't want that record to exist of what they're doing. And you don't want that to be a crime because, why?
As to the 'add one more stressor' excuse, how the hell is 'Leave the cameras turned on' doing that?
Believe it or not, I don't want to make the job of honest cops harder, but I'm also damned sick of the excuses made for the corrupt ones. And, let's be honest: this would require the prosecutors to actually charge them, history indicates it's going to take something really major to make them do that. Which is another level of bullshit that needs to end.
2 comments:
It doesn't make the job harder. It makes it easier with a record of the officers actions that isn't from a third party edited to fit their agenda. Three complaints against me since my employer adopted body cams. The footage showed them all to be utter BS. If the officer does what he is supposed to do.
[quote]"To add one more stressor to officers, we've had a lot of officers say this would be the straw that would break the camel's back, and they would find another line of work," said Cunningham.[ end quote]
If having your actions under color of law and in an official capacity open to public viewing is "the straw that breaks the camel's back", then I'd say the officers in question have no business being cops in the first place and finding another line of work is exactly what they need to do.
The badge heavy cops that think they're the masters and we're the little people...the ones that think the laws don't apply to them because "I AM the law", and don't want those attitudes exposed to the public...those are the ones that we NEED to have find another line of work, because they are exactly the problem.
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