"I want a dashcam, but then again, I don't violate anyone's rights"

Funny how GOOD cops like him, never get to be heard, just the fuckhead bad eggs.

Its for proving that bogus complaints are false.

Against policy here. No personal video or audio recording devices.

This is part of the reason I bought my helmet cam. That and cool video of going in fires.

Brah, I work in the courts.  I finally got audio recording by the metal detector.  I've been begging for this upgrade.  Though I have not had one complaint in 16 years.

Huh, I figured dashcams were standard equipment these days

In a lot of places, yes. In many, no.

As much as possible, but they are also very expensive, some around $5,000.

What  personal videos, a lot of cop cars have it installed by the department.  At this point I am surprised any department doesn't do it on all of their cars.

And they also aren't reliable.

I love them to death but ours only work perhaps 80% of the time.

And you have to remember to turn them on too :) (unless it's a car stop, it is auto record on those)

Since the devices aren't provided by the dept, any audio or video recording device is a personal audio or video device.

I get so fucking fed up with DV shit. We go out there time and time again, patch the dude up, or patch the chick up, they cry, they bawl, they swear it's the last time, a few days later, FIGHT'S ON!

Right.

No "dash cam" manufacturer will say their system is totally reliable. But its common for Police Departments to treat them as if they are. And forgetting to turn it on is becomming one of the worst things a cop can do. There is basically zero tolerance for not catching something on video and audio both.

Thats why cops complain about cameras. The cameras themselves are a great tool. The over reaching policies the departments write/publish regarding their use is what you will see cops complaining about.

I wish the body cams had been common when i was k9 handler


EVERYONE bit sues

EVERYONE bit was warned multiple times in Eng/Esp that that is exactly what would happen if they did not comply / come out

You didn't tell them nicely enough. No judgement for you!

You have to compare that to the cost of bogus lawsuits and keeping cops that might be "less than observant about proper behavior" honest.  It's not that expensive.

ETA Plus the side benefit of the videos on liveleak / youtube.  

Dept I work for every car has in-car video and we are issued body cams.

I wouldn't work without them as they have saved me many times.

Every complaint I have received since getting the cameras has been dismissed.

MPD165

The leadership of government in my area isn't exactly.....smart.

I would not count on a jury agreeing that a warning justifies the use of the significant intermediate force of a K9 for non-compliance. Some juries are gonna derp no matter what.

I understand.  Note the state that I reside in.  

Agreed where I worked if the dog got let go you had to try very hard to earn it when there was video it was laughable how much they wanted to have a go with the dog


win /win

suspect wants to fight dogs want to fight

Oh, you got it bad!

Was pulled over a few months ago and cop told me i was being video/audio recorded right away. Not sure if it was a dash cam or he had one on him tho. I thought I could make a yellow light and pretty blatantly went thru it red right in front of him. Was running really low on gas and just trying to make it to the gas station. He let me go with a verbal warning.

That is a fairly accurate assessment.  It would be a lie to say that there aren't dirty cops who are afraid of cramping their style with a camera.  However, most gripes aren't based on that scenario.  

For example, our vehicle-location system was instituted with the express purpose of safety.  They weren't to be used for disciplinary purposes, in and of themselves.  The reality is that they rarely work well enough to locate officers in distress, and often don't work at all, except to log data that may be retrieved after the fact.  Because of this, the sole use, save for a few occasions, has been to take data after the fact, and use that to charge officers at random.  The system has proven to be erroneous, and yet the department still tried to suspend officers whose logs didn't match AVL records perfectly.  That just isn't possible, due to the inaccuracies of the system (which hasn't been calibrated in years).  Command staff claims they have ceased the practice, but time will tell.

As for the cameras, several of the models my dept. tested record continuously.  Turning the camera "on" merely tells it to index the data for playback.  The video playback actually begins from a point in time before "recording" is activated (Taser advertises thirty seconds, for example, when buffer mode is engaged).  On some cameras, video can be recovered well beyond the advertised buffer.  While that can be beneficial, a lot of people are understandably uneasy about a camera that records in such a fashion.  It is never truly "off" during your tour.

Aside from pulling random video from times between recording, there is also the fact that, with body cameras, there is something else to damage, lose, or get snagged in a chase or an arrest.  If I get mud on the lens, and don't notice, is my department going to say I tampered with the device?  If it works loose in a foot-chase, I now have to shell out the cost of the system.  If it doesn't engage when I try, will I be accused of doing so intentionally?

As I said before, it certainly can be helpful.  I don't get complaints to begin with, so it wouldn't have benefited me in the past.  It could save my ass in the future, so I am not opposed to the idea.  However, don't think that people don't have legitimate beefs with what a pain in the ass the system can be, and how it might be used unscrupulously.

I love my dashcam.  I'd be so unhappy if I couldn't record all those crazy things that people say and do (no sarcasm).

in this day and age there is no reason for a dash cam to not record the entire duration of the shift

hell in urban areas the data should be streamed near realtime


regardless the officer should have no control over the media /on /off  
most popo are honest and it helps more than it hurts in the days of cheap memory / storage no excuse for it not to be rolling 24/7

Good for backseat res gestae too.

This problem was solved VERY early on in dashcam implementation with them automatically coming on with the lights, siren, etc.  Unless an officer is purposely turning them off, they record the traffic stop.

I would of liked to have had one on patrol but that was never happening with my PD. Luckily all my civilian complaints were investigated and found to be unfounded anyway by the CCRB. The ramifications of complaints at work would of been the same with video so it didn't really matter in the long run. Either way you were getting punished.

You also have to balance it against cops who will be less assertive because of prior, bogus complaints.

IMO, it's worth every penny for both reasons. The YouTube videos are just gravy.

My new car that I am getting later this year will have a dash camera in it. Personally, I welcome it. I wish we would get body cameras though as I think they would be more useful.

The way my PD handled complaints definitely lead to many cops having a hands off attitude.

I dont get it

lots of cops want dash cams.

Yes, but they don't necessarily turn themselves on when the officer gets out of the car on a call that did not require the use of lights/siren.

True, for me, it is force of habit now to turn it on whenever I make a public contact.

With that said, the local PD around here trusts their officers so little that they have slowly gone from lights only activation to anytime door opens activation.

It would have been great to have, back in the day.

The huge, bloated broodsow that said I promised not to ticket her if she'd show me her tits. Would've been great to see that video of her literally jumping out of her car to flash me; even before I got my own door open.

Fortunately, the car that nearly smote her as she jumped out, pulled over also; they volunteered to be the victim for her CPC 647a (Lewd Conduct in Public) arrest.

Good times.

Reminds me of the woman who claimed I only stopped her because she was a lesbian. (Don't know how I was supposed to know that as she drove past)
She also went on to claim that I called her a "N word bitch". When the investigator from the CCRB told me that I laughed my ass off. When he asked what was funny I called my partner who was waiting downstairs on my cell and asked him to come inside. When his big 6' 4" 275 pound black ass came in the office I just pointed to him and asked the investigator "Do you think I actually said that in front of him?"
Case Unfounded.

So he was a lesbian?

We got dash cams in our tractors this year. One cam pointed out, one at the driver.

The two times it came into play at our terminal saved the drivers: one had a lady swerve into him, the camera showed he maintained his lane.

The other flipped his rear trailer, which is automatic termination if the accident is preventable. The cam of the driver behind him helped rule it non-preventable because it clearly showed it was black ice and not driver error that caused the crash.

 

No, he was blind the whole time.

 

My dept has talked about getting cameras inside the car that face the driver.  They want supervision to be able to access them anytime, live.

Maybe you missed the second "?