Police testing gun cameras

[mrp]

>Some Minnesota police departments are beginning to test out gun cameras

http://www.startribune.com/body-cameras ... 450899653/


I saw this coming years ago...

viewtopic.php?f=60&t=16084

[INOR]

From the article:

"There doesn't appear to be any gun camera footage of a police shooting yet because police agencies have not formally approved use of the cameras and no shootings happened during trials."

I bet the execs of the two companies marketing these things are just chomping at the bit for an officer involved shooting with one of these in place, so they can get the video to use in their marketing efforts.

Article also says that each gun mounted camera will cost about the same as a body camera ($500ish) but storage costs are less because it doesn't record as much data. Just the "critical" incident. They're trying to imply that it'll save money because of reduced storage costs. But I don't see any way that a department would abandon regular body and squad cams for this. So in fact it would double the costs. It would be just adding another cam and perspective.

I support body cams as I believe if they are used each and every time they engage someone, they'll protect cops more than they'll ever hurt them.

Read through your old post too, by the way. Good stuff. Took me a minute as my mind was going "Wait a second....who the **** is Governor Fletcher and have I been in a coma for a while or something?" Lol


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[mrp]

Read through your old post too, by the way. Good stuff. Took me a minute as my mind was going "Wait a second....who the **** is Governor Fletcher and have I been in a coma for a while or something?" Lol

There's a lot in there that won't make sense without context. Justaguy, for example:

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=15502&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=free

[yukonjasper]

I never understood why "social Justice" groups would be OK with the officer having the option to stop recording or not turn on their cameras. The entire concept of being "on the air" while you work is bizarre. When your gun is drawn, to me, seems appropriate. I guess they are not trusted even with the weapon is holstered, so generally I do think that this will be added to the list of surveillance methods for on duty officers.

Seems to me that if they paid Police Officers more, they would attract and retain better quality people and if they screened for psychological maturity they may be able to weed out the people who are in it for the wrong reasons or are mentally not in the right place to handle the responsibility. Personally, I don't know why anyone would want to be a police officer in today's political/social environment. I am glad they are there and they have my complete support, however I don't want to have any interaction at all with anyone in law enforcement - just never know when you are going to come across someone "who be trippin'".

[BigBlue]

Seems to me that if they paid Police Officers more, they would attract and retain better quality people and if they screened for psychological maturity they may be able to weed out the people who are in it for the wrong reasons or are mentally not in the right place to handle the responsibility. Personally, I don't know why anyone would want to be a police officer in today's political/social environment. I am glad they are there and they have my complete support, however I don't want to have any interaction at all with anyone in law enforcement - just never know when you are going to come across someone "who be trippin'".

It is indeed a budget issue. Police departments feel they need to have a certain staff level on duty at any particular time (xx number of officers on patrol). But most of what goes into that desired headcount involves officers being tied up a good portion of their shift with busy work or transport (such as taking a DWI arrestee to jail). If the PD focused less on traffic tickets, which take a fair amount of time for the officers to handle, and DWI enforcement, which often takes several officers and ties them up with transport, and instead focused on real 'crime' they would be able to get by with fewer staff and their budgets could afford to pay more to each. Though I'm no fan of truly dangerous drivers or those obviously impaired, stopping someone going 42 in a 35 or who is driving 100% normally and carefully but gets pulled over for DWI check with the excuse of a burned-out bulb is stuff that could be traded off in the name of budgets and crime reduction. And I know this will trigger a lot of folks because "OMG, nobody can drive after drinking any alcohol" but save your breath because this is how I feel about it.

[Ghost]

People I know who are police officers wish they weren't police officers. They don't seem to want to do anything more than the minimum needed for their pensions.

[yukonjasper]

Unfortunately, I don't blame them. Any perceived lack of judgment or issue that arises while on duty, real or concocted, is an automatic lawsuit and with the political climate today, other than fellow officers and the Union, they get no air cover from the mayors office, politicians or the public. Those groups are all way to eager to pile on and criticize through the long lens of time and study of all angles of the situation. The officer isn't afforded that luxury and the actions that are taken in a split second with only the information readily available in that split second are presented only to those officers who push themselves into service to the community. There is simply no incentive to leave your cruiser or seek out ways to interact with citizens. Some police actions I've see are obviously egregious and indefensible, however many more are judgment calls that often involve heavy personal (injury/death) consequences for the officer which get twisted in the media and played out through the lens of "social justice" advocates who are just looking to make a name for themselves.

The cruel irony is that they, of all people, will never be assumed innocent until proven guilty

[smurfman]

Serious calls are not ignored in favor of traffic enforcement, traffic enforcement is typically done during "slow" times when there are not calls to respond to. Fortunately, most communities have little crime to speak of so an officer does a fair bit of traffic enforcement to fill their time. More than once I left a traffic stop to respond to another call, much to the relief of the person I pulled over. Possible DWIs were the exception, mainly due to liability reasons as the department and the officer would be held liable for any accidents or injuries that occurred once it was determined the driver had been drinking.

Actually, if you wish to reduce crime in a community, the best way is through heavy enforcement of traffic and other "trivial" ordinances. Get a reputation of stopping people for every little infraction and the "crooks" will find other places to hang out. It also can cause impaired drivers to chose other ways/means home to avoid getting a DWI. I grew up near HWY 7 near Lake Minnetonka. It was locally called "Sui-Seven" due to the number of fatal vehicle crashes. 2+fatal crashes a year was the norm and multiple fatalities were not uncommon. Several more with serious injuries were to be expected and those with lesser injuries were almost weekly. A new police chief pushed for heavy traffic enforcement on the highway and over about a 5 year period fatal accidents were reduced to about 1 every 2-3 years with a corresponding drop in other accidents.

Those willing to commit felonies are not likely to obey lesser laws/statutes/ordinances nor do they necessarily have vehicles in tip top working order and are often found when stopped for those infractions. These were not necessarily ones who committed crimes in the given jurisdiction but had plied their trades elsewhere and ended up with a warrant for their arrest. At one time the State Patrol had the greatest number of felony arrests and they do virtually nothing but traffic enforcement.

In the brief time I was in law enforcement I was able to make over a dozen felony arrests on warrants on traffic stops. Most were burglary or theft but two were manslaughter charges and one was rape. Another officer went to stop a vehicle for a tail light out only to end up in a chase which ended in the arrest of someone who had killed a cop, kidnapped and raped a woman a few days earlier who was still in the vehicle when the chase started, and took a family hostage after the suspect ran off the road. Another time, a burglar specializing in businesses along the highway was caught by one of our officers when the officer pulled over a car for a broken headlight and a toolbox was noticed in the back seat. A call to neighboring departments the next morning lead to the discovery of a service station that had been burgled in which a toolbox matching that seen in the car was taken. When a search warrant for the registered residence was executed, items from a number of other burglaries along the highway were found. The odd part was, our jurisdiction had no such burglaries reported but those on both sides had a number of them. The suspect was asked about this and he stated he did not even think about hitting the businesses along our part of the highway as we were always around pulling over vehicles and he figured he would be caught. As it was, skipping our city did not help him much but he may have delayed getting caught if he only would have taken and replaced the dead headlight when he burgled the service station.

Back in my day it took about 15-20 minutes to initiate and complete a traffic stop. Today, it is about 5 minutes or so quicker for officers due to computers and printers. If drivers had their proof of insurance readily available another couple of minutes could be cut from the stop. DWIs take time and always will due to documentation and testing. It is just a part of the job that is necessarily long and I don't see it being shortened easily. Some communities seem to use the EMS system to a higher degree than other communities to transport drunks but that just pushes any delays in response to a different arena. Adding more detox intakes could cut down times but that is an expensive proposition. I hated DWIs due to the shifts in mood and dealing with those often unable to think reasonably but those are also the reasons it was important to remove them from the road. Even those "caught" due to equipment infractions often reverted to such actions upon being detained. Ability to function "normally" when intoxicated and not stressed may have been possible for many but add some stress and they often fell short in capability. The latter is when the difference between successfully navigating through a dangerous situation or not becomes dependent on how well one can react both mentally and physically. Enough fail when sober so adding more to the "poor choice" category does not seem wise.