It could be fixed with some policy changes by the department, but I don’t see it happening.
Equipment damaged? No pay for that day. Equipment down too often? Desk job or firing for you.
ETA: Obviously formal wording would need to be tightened up and loopholes closed.
Who watches the watchmen? Nobody at all, if they have anything to say about it.
Caught tampering with monitoring devices while acting as an officer of the court? Go to jail.
Disappointing and pathetic, but not surprising.
Exactly this, from what it appears there’s no consequence to damaging the equipment. My first thought was just replacing/repairing equipment comes out of the officer’s salary. Totally agree with rest of your policy suggestions.
The linked article says that they’ve put in new procedures to check the antennas at the beginning of every shift and do spot checks. Since then only one antenna has gone missing.
There is an easy way to suppress this. Legislation stating that, if the recordings are not available, the police’s testimony, including testimony exculpatory of themselves, is not admissible. It is a variant of the doctrine of spoilation. If you spoil the evidence, the other guy can say what he wants, and you can’t argue against it.
Colby​gk, as opposed to a non-officer of the court where we would have always gone to jail for tampering with police monitoring devices.
When will cops get additional sentence for abusing the trust rather than a free pass because we don’t want to abuse our hard working peace officers. Other professions are both more difficult and far more deadly yet they do not get to choose suspension without pay or dismssal over prison time for the majority of crimes.
I would support requiring every peace officer applicant requiring a license to practice law and spending several years as public defender before getting a badge and gun, and paying them appropriately for the schooling. This is to weed out those just seeking a job where they can oppress or at least permit oppression to occur. We have made a terrible mistake converting our soldiers and marines into police officers and bringing the military wartime culture into the police force even as the rest of society has matured.
Such power carries heavy responsibility, arguably equivalent that of a judge, pilot, or surgeon. There should be both the requirement of significant personal investment as the three occupations mentioned as well as appropriate compensation for the investment and responsibility of those careers. With such a weighty investment of time, money, and effort as well as the good compensation there would be more incentive to stay on the right side of the law rather than cause or abet police forces becoming uniformed gangs with the sovereign monopoly on force.
You know, if they have nothing to hide, why should they mind?
Oh yeah, they’re proven thugs and liars. There is that.
Wouldn’t this be something along the lines of conspiracy to commit perjury? What other reason is there to disable monitoring devices than to commit perjury? Last I checked, this is something that will land you in jail.
Granted, it seems nearly impossible to enforce the law against law enforcement.
Dear lawyers, obstruction of justice?
But how many antennas get removed during the shift only to find their way back at the end of the shift? It should be damn near impossible to tamper with any evidence collection device without being noticed.
Simple obstruction of justice. Nothing less than a crime.
perhaps the “no pay for that day” isn’t very enforcable.
How do you know which day it was damaged?
How do you know how many days has been damaged?
I would suggest that the cost of parts and labour for fixing the equipment should come of from the salary when vandalized and not happened by accident. And then, more severe penalties when the downtime is more than normal.
Why doesn’t the belt worn voice recorder record locally to tamper-evident internal microsd or something if the base station in the car is unavailable, and then sync when it comes back in range?
Your suggestion sets a very high bar, but I see what you’re driving at. What about ex-military personnel?
Don’t like being accountable on the job? Interfere with that shit!
Ex-military should not be employed by civilian police forces. At all. Ever.
Come on, they’ve got the right haircut and they know about guns!
