I agree. I do not believe that allowing officers to see footage prior to their report will have a positive result. It will slow down the process at large, and open up too many opportunities to bend facts. Make them report as they always have and let the video evidence support/contradict statements accordingly when such disputes arise. Bent cops need to be identified, and this policy will help to that end.
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Judging from the backlash towards Google Glassās limited recording capabilities, there would probably be problems with this all around.
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Unfortunately, it echoes the police surveillance byline, but, if they arenāt involved in anything untoward, they shouldnāt mind being seen. The problem is not the pervasiveness of digital eyes and ears, but the power imbalance with which they have tended to be applied. Perhaps it will cause police to be more careful when broaching peopleās private lives appears to be part of their job. Thereās greater risk in not seeing what public servants with guns are doing at any given time, than the embarrassment of civilians being seen.
The root of the problem is that police and other government groups have no reasonable expectation of privacy or autonomy in carrying out their duties. They require direct oversight.
There have been instances when people have been arrested for recording police activity. But streaming their activity to the net avoids most of those problems, and also keeps the data safe if police try to confiscate your camera.
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At the very least, if the police get to see the footage before making a statement, the arrestees should as well.
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No, videos recorded by cop cams are evidence. It should be seized in put in a evidence bag and processed. Cops must be put on an even tier with everyone else. Iām sure that chafes cops saddles. Welcome to the world of electronic accountability where no one can hide.
And to the NYPD, youāre not special or heroic. You just have job and you are no different than anyone else.
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Itās not a thorny question when a civilian is the one under interrogation. Do you think they would offer you security-cam footage to help your story be as accurate as possible? If not, why should this courtesy be extended to a witness whoās a cop?
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I agree with this.
But this sounds unrealistic. Even the topic title says āfootageā, which is an anachronistic reference to film or tape. But it is more likely that this data will be streamed and recorded elsewhere. It is basically ābroadcastā. People might see it live, in which case it canāt be sealed away any more than any other live news feed.
Not letting the cops see their own bodycam footage on the grounds that they might lie, to me, smacks of gotcha logic. We donāt permit prosecutors to lay traps by withholding evidence from defendants. Iām all for having the police work recorded at all times, but explicitly stating āwe want to do it this way so we can ambush youā strikes me as going into gratuitous fuck-you territory.
The us-vs.-them attitude of police has been much remarked upon of late. If there is a policy better designed to reinforce it, I canāt think of one.
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Itās common enough for that to happen, we all watch āfilmsā for example and donāt get me started about just how old-timey the term āmoviesā sounds when you think about it.
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This is a situation that the police have created for themselves. I have no sympathy.
Theyāre not cherry picked when there are an excessive number of examples. Itās quite the opposite.
We donāt?
Can a defence lawyer get hold of police interview tapes or call a police officer to testify to what they said in the interview room?
(genuine question)
Whatās the opposite of what? To clarify, Miasm said:
What I said is cherry-picking is that most people do not seem to automatically give police any benefit of doubt. The reason they seem to have unassailable credibility is because judges and attorneys make this appear to be the case. But judges are certainly not representative of the average person. They are a statistically insignificant (aka "cherry-picked) example.
The say of the legal system only has more weight if you assume that you answer to them, rather than them answering to you.
Thatās a pretty convincing argument!
I am not a lawyer, but I believe a key foundation of the legal system is that any evidence must be made available to both prosecution and defense well before the actual trial if itās to be admissible. If the prosecution hides evidence in the hopes that the defendant will say something that will be contradicted by that evidence, the judge is not likely to be very amused.
An exception is made for genuine surprises - e.g., if a nine-year-old boy (being tried as an adult) is going to be convicted of murdering his school principal, who just happened to show up as the verdict was going to be handed down and revealed heād been trapped in his garage under a pile of old newspapers, that would be admissible evidence that the boy didnāt commit murder. (He will, however, have his life made into a TV movie and be played by a pre-cool Neil Patrick Harris.)
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Maybe at a trial stage.
Do you think the police ever withold evidence from or mislead suspects to try to get them to confess? (say, by telling the suspect thereās footage of them committing the crime even if there isnāt, or itās not clear).
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I would certainly hope so. You can back here.
In the US, in theory, at least, police and prosecutors are required to turn over any exculpatory evidence that they uncover
In practice this does not always work out. Sometimes we find out decades later that evidence was not disclosed, which pretty much sucks if you were wrongly convicted because of prosecutorial misconduct. New Orleans was in the news back in 2012 over allegations that this was a widespread problem there
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Point for the reference. 
