As of December 10, 2017, you can star in your own true crime TV show courtesy of the Chicago Police Department. Since that date, all Chicago Police patrol officers have body cameras. The Mayor’s office boasts this to be the largest rollout of body camera technology in the entire nation. This tactical development is the direct result of the backlash from the Laquan McDonald case and the harshly critical Justice Department report that followed the release of that ominous dash camera video.
However, by equipping almost 7,000 patrol officers with body cameras, the Chicago Police Department completed a crucial step in becoming a truly 21st century police force. But do body cameras actually improve policing and police/citizen encounters? Once considered the holy grail for exposing police brutality and dishonesty, a recent study out of the DC Metro Police Department undermines current hope and sentiment for the body camera buzz sweeping criminal justice reform.
The DC Metro Police Department study examined 2,000 officers, half of whom were equipped with body cameras. In the study, DC Metro Police officers equipped with cameras used force and received civilian complaints at about the same rate as those without cameras. The study embedded scientists in local government & police to monitor use of force incidents, civilian complaints, and other outcomes. After tracking these officers for over 7 months, they found the effect of the body cameras statistically insignificant.
The 21st century body camera revolution is fundamentally altering the practice of criminal defense in Chicago and across the nation. This is not only the result of numerous examples in recent years of police shootings caught on tape, but also academically bolstered by a Rialto, CA Police Department study in 2012. That study found that after equipping their officers with body cameras there was a 90% drop in civilian complaints from the previous year. However, unlike DC, the Rialto body camera study only included 54 officers. Five years and numerous police media videos later, the results of the DC Metro study are disappointing, to say the least.
There are alternative explanations for these results. Metro DC Police officers had a better than average reputation for training and supervision. Simply, with or without the cameras, these were good police officers by and large. Plus, these days all of us have cameras in our pockets. No one can escape YouTube. Law enforcement is policing in a world where anyone can be caught on camera at anytime. They know this, whether or not they have a body camera.
While videos of police/citizen encounters may not be the great equalizer they were once considered, their practical impact is being played out daily in courtrooms across the country. Just ask any practicing criminal defense attorney about the value of dash camera or body camera video to a Motion to Suppress Evidence.
Prior to cameras, if the officer testified you didn’t use your signal or come to a complete stop, 99.5% of the time, the Judge believed the officer. Fast forward to actually being able to play the stop and show the judge in real time that there is no traffic violation. That 99.5% now swings in your favor. However, video evidence can be as valuable to the defense as it is to the State. What if the police have you on camera committing a crime? What if the State loses the tape? In any of the above situations, you need an experienced Chicago criminal defense firm to guide to protect your rights and freedom.
The criminal defense attorneys at Robert Callahan & Associates have won numerous motions by subpoenaing the body and dash camera videos. We then closely examine this evidence to find out if there was no probable cause to arrest or stop our clients. At other times, we can request the Court sanction the State for losing body or dash camera evidence. Body camera and dash camera video evidence can help your legal defense in almost any case, whether you are facing a misdemeanor possession charge or a class X felony.
But there is perhaps a different, if not equally significant, value to body cameras. By equipping all Chicago Police patrol officers with body cameras, trust is built within the community. A camera brings a psychological comfort to a citizen outmatched in the face of police authority. The concept of an independent record of police/civilian interactions can help mend relationships. If only due to the fact that we can rewind the tape.
That being said, when and how officers rewind, or rather, start recording, will be the biggest test to the value of this technology. A picture is worth a thousand words, but a video is only worth when you push that record button.
These days we can all be on TMZ, it’s just gonna be called CPDTV instead.
Blog Sources and Article Resources
http://wgntv.com/2017/12/10/chicago-police-body-cam-rollout-complete/
http://peoriapublicradio.org/post/mayor-all-chicago-patrol-officers-now-have-body-cameras#stream/0
http://wgntv.com/2017/12/10/chicago-police-body-cam-rollout-complete
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/us/police-body-camera-study.html
The authors of the study were David Yokum of the Lab @ DC and Anita Ravishankar of the Metro Police Department. Id.
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