Cop's body cam records himself planting drugs

Except that's what a lot of people want and will likely get. Police reports are already public domain. You go down to the station, pay your $2, and you can have any report you want. Worst case, all it would take to have

• any rape victim's statement
• any search of anyone's house
• any crime scene footage
• etc.

...on the 10 o'clock news is a Freedom of Information Act submission.

That said, it's still a new technology and I'm eagerly looking for where it goes. In general, it's an absolutely fantastic thing.

A 32GB micro SD cards is good for 24 hours of 720p video and audio. The problem with the one's I'm familiar with is keeping the batteries charged for that long. The batteries aren't replaceable, meaning the unit has to be removed from the user's vest to charge. You get four, maybe five hours on a full charge.

Exactly and there are people out there who say all camera footage, every single frame, should be available to the public.

That includes the inside of Lanzman's house.

It's not just that. You have to bring it to the station, download, and maintain the file/database as well as the computer equipment.

In a small police department that might be possible.

Imagine a police department with 2000+ officers or even worse a city like New York City with 34,000 uniformed police officers.

You're talking a major infrastructure investment.

The server space needed for even a medium-sized police department would be huuuuge if their cameras were running for their entire shift.

Plus, as Elwood said, batteries would be an issue unless you plugged in the camera to an external, higher capacity battery attached to their belt or vest.

On a related note, I wish GoPro would make batteries that lasted as long as those in the cameras that Elwood described. 2.5 hours is about the max I can get with their current batteries.

Oh, I'm aware. With full-time recording, you're looking at archiving 1TB of data per officer, per month. In the average size Police Department in the US, you're looking at 1 Petabyte per year. That's $350,000 per year in legally secure and encrypted data storage alone. After ten years, that cost would be $3.5 million per year just in data storage.

Assumes that data storage costs stay consistent, and also that the footage is required to be kept for that long.

It would definitely be a big initial cost setting a system up, but I think the positive benefits would outweigh the costs, especially when people get more confidence in law enforcement when they see consequences for police acting inappropriately or controversial cases have proof of why the police were actually in the right.

Hey, I just had an idea...

Departments wouldn't have to keep all the footage, just the important bits like interaction with the public, responding to calls, etc. Review the footage, get rid of all the mundane activities/material (who cares if the officer has an unremarkable trip through the McDonald's drive-through?) and keep only the relevant bits. That way the camera would always be on to capture something important if it happens, but if nothing does the video could be discarded.

And to do that, police departments would need shitloads of editors.

Sounds nice until you're accused of editing out a beat down you damn racist editor.

"I was just following orders. "

There may be technical and financial issues involved, but I'm really not sure how body cams serve to hold cops accountable if they can be turned off at the officer's convenience.

I'm assuming the laws vary from state to state. That said, we are required to maintain all documents in perpetuity. If something is attached to a case file, we're required to keep them accessible for the duration of the statute of limitations. After that time has passed, they can be moved to "cold" (unmonitored but secure) storage. Similarly, I know the District Attorney's Office and Courts are required to keep everything available for 10 years, at which time they can move their files into "cold" storage. But, even that's becoming irrelevant in the 21st Century as the move from paper to electronic records has been pretty much accomplished.

Battery issues aside, I think the answer is to let the video record over itself in an infinite rotation for the life of the Micro SD card. However, every supervisor and every detective should have the means, in their vehicle, to download and store any relevant data after whatever incident occurs for later upload to a secure data storage facility. You just have to make the software fool proof with simple options like "export the last x number of minutes of Camera X to HDD."

I have an idea here, maybe Elwood can share his thoughts: if cops often work in pairs, with a partner (do they do that much anymore? I usually see solo cops) then one of them has their camera on at while, the other cops turns theirs off to save the battery power. They switch out on a regular basis, with a small window where both are on and confirmed working before one cop shuts theirs off.

Anyway yes data storage is the big show-stopper where I live too. The cost is insane! Granted we haven't had a questionable shooting in a long time either - with a black chief of police, black mayor, many black cops, etc.etc. the race angle on any police brutality is rarely an issue.

Is the aim of bodycams partly to ensure officers are aware their actions may be recorded? If so, why not have a passive mode on the camera that takes a 30 second clip every so often, then an active mode enabled during stops/busts? If the officer has no way of knowing when the passive recording is taken, then the deterrent factor against questionable activity is still there.

This method is used in some psych studies, albeit audio only. Not sure if it would act as a deterrent, we're pretty good at forgetting/ignoring things.

Some quick googling says a GoPro Hero 4 has an 1160mah battery.

This anker 20,100 mah battery pack is only $42 and isn't that big. I don't see why using an external battery wouldn't be feasible.

Something tells me Baltimore is not grtting the best and brightest.

That is a really good deal, cheaper than any store (even Fry's), and Amazon is offering free same day delivery. That is hard to beat.

I would think at a minimum such would/should be available as part of disclosure to the defense lawyer/team

Interesting. Even shooting 1080p with ProTune selected I get more time than that out of most of my batteries.

Well, they did get the Browns . . . and the, uh, Browns . . .

Something tells me you don't proofread your posts.

This is easily fixed through state law.

Have you heard of AWS?

They are not going to put what is essentially "legal documents" in the cloud.

Their server is "the cloud." Put enough doors in the way and it's the same as anyone else.

Actually, they are. Watch guard technologies of Dallas Texas has had systems in place for almost half a decade upload cruiser video to the cloud. I believe they use Azure government. They are doing the same thing with their Vista body cam systems.

The main problem is the solves for police agencies are Storage, but secondly and perhaps more importantly chain of custody of the video.

Guess who made the news again.

More, including the video, at the link.

Good point! As a private citizen I never took an oath (if cops do that) to protect and to serve. But the cops are "a cut above the rest" of the general citizens. Damn straight they should be subject to additional scrutiny when it comes to recording their activities on the job. As a military member I had to piss in a bottle while someone watched my stream of piss from my dick to the bottle then sent that bottle in to ensure that I wasn't taking illegal drugs. I'll be damned if some cop shouldn't have to be filmed taking a piss if I was under similar scrutiny.