One of the taxpayers who will pay for them?
What I mean is that I would buy one at my own expense. They have come down in price very drastically. I have one on my pickup truck. If a LEO does not want a video cam to come to his defense, a camera that costs almost nothing, then it is his word against the word of others - potentially a lot of others.
It's a close call here, with this buck. It all happened in the blink of an eye. I missed hitting him by a fraction of a second. But my little video cam caught it.
Not that the buck has very much to do with allegations of Police misconduct, but the video cam can. This all happened so quickly. When the video cam caught this frame, I already had stepped on the brakes with all my might.
One of the taxpayers who will pay for them?
Better to buy a couple hundred $200 cameras than to spend millions in lawsuits.
I tend to agree.
Unfortunately I've tested two of the cheaper cameras. You truly do get what ya pay for. The resolution and pic quality was so poor (low light), and the field of view was so bad I doubt it would help any. Might even hurt. I also tested a good one, 699.00 is out of my budget right now. But I am putting off a few gun purchases until I can scrape it up.
Nothing screams poor craftsmanship like wrinkles in your duct tape
Nothing screams poor craftsmanship like wrinkles in your duct tape
There is also another potential problem that I want to throw into the mix here.
Body cams, like dash cameras, are subject to Open Records Act. That means that the police department has to keep every moment recorded for 7 years. With hundreds of officers and cameras/incidents being recorded, the raw storage, backup (potential hard drive failure) and chain of custody tracking of these videos, plus the copying of these videos for investigations, ORA and media requests this can cause potential problems for departments both large and small. There will also be hardware failures and other things to consider.
Technology is never as simple as it seems once it is scaled up, I deal with medium to large infrastructure daily.
Body cams, like dash cameras, are subject to Open Records Act. That means that the police department has to keep every moment recorded for 7 years. With hundreds of officers and cameras/incidents being recorded, the raw storage, backup (potential hard drive failure) and chain of custody tracking of these videos, plus the copying of these videos for investigations, ORA and media requests this can cause potential problems for departments both large and small. There will also be hardware failures and other things to consider.
Technology is never as simple as it seems once it is scaled up, I deal with medium to large infrastructure daily.
You saw the quality in the pics above, poor. But it was night and I had the brakes to the floor, the buck moved fast. That is the worst case scenerio for my videocam. In daylight the pic quality is decent. I paid $100 for it about 9 or 10 months ago. Now, that Officer that shot that 18 year old in Ferguson, he did that in daylight. Even a cheaper video cam than mine would have shown the assailant reaching into the patrol car and the struggle that ensued. It would have shown it in daylight anyway. But if I made a living arresting people, I would go with the $699 camera that you are talking about.
I'm nowhere near your expertise in IT for the record.
There was a thread on dash cams awhile back. I was thinking there was some legality that let them delete the video's after a certain length of time if there were no legalities on the video?
Some LE agencies are beginning to use them. Be it as it may, I would have one whether it was SOP or not. They could simply tell me to quit using the body cam or quit the force. I would quit the force before I gave up such a valuable piece of cover my ass technology.
If I was an LEO, I would be pushing for the cams or buying one myself. If for no other reason then if I did have to shoot someone I would face a lot less grief from all the finger pointing and investigations.
