Body cameras can protect
responsible officers against false claims of bad behavior and can help problem
departments identify problematic police procedures and officers.
Posted: Saturday, December 19,
2015 10:30 pm
By Stephen J. Farnsworth and
Ellen O’Brien
Police departments around the
state need to get serious about supplying their officers with body cameras to
record their interactions with the public, say 92 percent of Virginians surveyed
in a new statewide poll sponsored by the University of Mary Washington.
In that 1,006-person survey
conducted last month, only 6 percent said it would be a bad idea for officers
to be equipped with body cameras. There was no gender gap in the responses to
the question, and there was little difference among whites, African-Americans
and Latinos or among Democrats, Republicans and independents. More than 87
percent of all those subgroups in the survey supported body camera deployment.
For those not familiar with
public opinion research, a 92-6 split among survey respondents is almost
unheard of in public policy questions during these days of deeply divided
politics.
A follow-up question demonstrated
that this strong citizen preference for the cameras was not motivated by
hostility to law enforcement. In response to the question of who is usually
responsible when a person is seriously injured during an arrest, only 11
percent thought the police officer was primarily at fault, as compared to 19
percent blaming the person being arrested, 26 percent saying both were
responsible and another 41 percent believing that it is not possible to say.
Police cameras provide a more
effective recording of interactions with suspects than do video clips produced
by bystanders, who record few incidents and usually only start recording after
the incidents are well underway. Furthermore, witness recordings are often made
at a considerable distance from the incident itself. Dashboard cameras have
provided evidence of many police-suspect interactions, as have stationary
cameras deployed in some community trouble spots, but those stationary cameras
capture only some of the action.
Body cameras can protect
responsible officers against false claims of bad behavior and can help problem
departments identify problematic police procedures and officers.
Roughly one of six
law-enforcement agencies in Virginia uses body cameras, according to an October
2015 study by the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia.
Without body cameras, police
behavior can be subject to controversy. This is demonstrated most clearly in
Fairfax County, the largest jurisdiction in the state that does not mandate the
use of police body cameras.
After two years of investigation,
former Fairfax County police officer Adam Torres now faces charges of
second-degree murder in the death of John Geer. Torres said Geer moved suddenly
and reached down and that there was a gun at his feet, but other officers on
the scene say they did not see that sudden movement. With police body cameras
it would be much clearer what really happened that day.
More recently, a bystander
recorded an incident where another Fairfax County police officer used a Taser
on a man who was lying on the ground and apparently not resisting. A bystander’s
video of the event went viral.
Fairfax officials have said they
are considering whether to use this new technology. Until they and other
governments join the small number of jurisdictions that deploy body cameras,
public perceptions of police departments and the resolutions of contentious
debates regarding how officers behaved in the field all too often will depend
on the randomness of what gets posted online by bystanders and what does not.
Stephen J. Farnsworth is
professor of political science at the University of Mary Washington and
director of the University’s Center for Leadership and Media Studies. Contact
him at sfarnswo@.umw.edu.
Ellen O’Brien is a senior
political science major at UMW and a research associate at the center. Contact
her at eobrien2@mail.umw.edu.
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