Body Camera Research Paper

Improved Essays
Police Use of Body Cameras

In April 2014, Albuquerque police officer Jeremy Dear shot and killed a 19-year-old Mary Hawkes on the grounds that she was a suspected car thief (Boetel, 2016). Surprisingly, the officer’s body camera was off, and the footage from his colleague did not give a detailed account of what happened during the incident. Despite several claims from Hawke’s family suggesting a possible police cover-up, the footage is the only evidence that can serve justice to offer tangible evidence.
It is apparent that something is not clear regarding the incidence. The police might have done something that could have tempered with the evidence. According to Boetel (2016), Ronald Chaves who is a former police department record keeper claims that the footage contains some damaged and missing information, which was deliberately tampered. Moreover, the former police officer claims that the video camera was tampered.
There is more to this story following the account provided by Chavez. In 2015, Mr. Chaves was
…show more content…
(December 2016). Hawkes family files civil rights lawsuit. Albuquerque Journal. Retrieved from https://www.abqjournal.com/913529/new-lawsuit-in-apd-fatal-shooting-of-mary-hawkes.html (Academic source)
Miller, L., & Toliver, J. (2014). Implementing a body-worn camera program: Recommendations and lessons learned. Retrieved from https://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/resources/472014912134715246869.pdf (Liberal source)
White, M. D. (2014). Police officer body-worn cameras: Assessing the evidence. Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.Retrieved from https://www.ojpdiagnosticcenter.org/sites/default/files/spotlight/download/Police%20Officer%20Body-Worn%20Cameras.pdf (Conservative source)
Wing, N. (2015). Here’s How Police Could End up Making Body Cameras Mostly Useless. THE HUFFING POST. Retrieved fromhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/police-body-camera-policy_us_5605a721e4b0dd8503079683 (Liberal

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Therefore, he is an expert in this field and has much experience dealing with cases regarding the consequences of police brutality due to the government not implementing body cameras. In addition, the author provides a reason to believe by uniquely expressing his viewpoint and boldly stating his opinion on the effect of body cameras on police officers and citizens. O’Mara states, “People act better when they know they're being watched -- or recorded. Cops act better, and the people they encounter on the street are more cooperative.” O’Mara references a studied commissioned by the Police Foundation in 2012 that displays statistical evidence proving few force incidents with body cameras.…

    • 681 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “In April 2015, Michael Slager, a 33-year-old white police officer in North Charleston, South Carolina, fatally shot Walter Scott, an unarmed 50-year-old African American man, after he pulled Scott's car over for having a faulty taillight. Slager claimed he had feared for his life when Scott stole his Taser, an account backed by the police department. Days later, however, a bystander, Feidin Santana, released cell phone footage of the shooting to the media that showed the two men engaging in a brief scuffle before Scott ran away. Slager then shot Scott eight times in the back before placing an object, which many speculated was his Taser, next to Scott's prone body. After the release of the video, Slager was fired from the force and charged with murder; a grand jury indicted him in June”().…

    • 549 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Body Cameras Pros And Cons

    • 1029 Words
    • 5 Pages

    To prevent cases like these people have brought up the idea of police officers wearing body cameras while on duty to record every incident they encounter while on duty. These body cameras can help by preventing violence, and help with accountability, but also bring up the issue about privacy. First, the use of body cameras can help prevent violence between the police officer and the victim. When a victim gets stopped by the police officers they are…

    • 1029 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The article Police Body Cameras analyzes the possible outcomes of this idea. The article states that using body cameras could offer protection to both parties, equating to a win-win scenario. Not only would the footage “protect the public against police misconduct”, but it would also “protect the police against false accusations of abuse” (p. 8). The footage collected from the cameras would offer accurate account of incidents which have in the past been blurred with bias against police as well as the blue shield of trust which protects fellow officers from their wrongdoing with cover up stories. The same article further explains that body cameras could be the bridge of trust needed between the public and law enforcement through the feeling of security they provide.…

    • 1279 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Body cameras serve a critical role in preventing violence. Both subjects are less likely to use physical aggression while the camera is active. Einvestigator tries to have body-cameras passed as a law in hopes that both subjects will act on a better manner. In regards to both the Ferguson and Baltimore cases, there is a good chance neither Wilson nor the six cops found guilty would…

    • 1111 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The likelihood of unnecessary abuse or misconduct on an officer or a civilian is greatly reduced when these encounters are recorded. One of the biggest cons against using body cameras includes invading the privacy of officers and civilians. According to Jay Stanley (2015), “Body cameras have more of a potential to invade privacy than those deployments. Police officers enter people's homes and encounter bystanders, suspects, and victims in a wide variety of sometimes stressful and extreme situations” (Stanley, 2015).…

    • 588 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout the past 10 years there has been many talks on whether the police should be required to wear body cameras. Throughout all the research and studies regarding these cameras, these have been many pros to body cams but there have also been cons and many challenges to implementing this system in police forces throughout the country. Many different police stations have done experiments with these cameras and have all shown very positive feedback. Regardless of the amount of work necessary to implement these cameras, it should be necessary for officers to wear these body cameras because they have the potential to save lives. To go along with that, police should be forced to wear these body cameras because they have the potential to save lives, give better representation than hearing a testimony, and make suspects less likely to run or attack an officer because everything they do is caught on camera.…

    • 1172 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This is a reason why the states should have police body cameras on all the officers. It started with that situation about Michael Brown and Liz Fields states that having police body cameras we will have more evidence of what actually happened and if there was any good evidence of why the officer shot him. Another reason is that these police body cameras would have prevented Michael Brown’s death because the officer would know that he is being recorded and he would act in a different way and behaved better. Also body cams can be a way that people would be acting different way against officers because they would know that they are being recorded and they won’t do anything stupid to get them in a big…

    • 1266 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    With those they only were able to record what happened in front of the cop car so there would be no proof of what happened away from the car. So if there was a complaint they would have to go on “he said, she said” and that runs the risk of whoever was in the wrong getting away with the crime. This is what happened in 2012 with a case from New Jersey. The police officers assaulted a man and were able to get away with it. The officers did not show the second squad cars dash cam which showed…

    • 1037 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    African-American Males Racially Profiled by Police Officers Racial profiling has become a controversial issue for all of America especially African-American males because of the recent increases of their arrest and killing by police officers across America. African-American males are the major targets of police officers who engage in racial profiling. (Weatherspoon). As defined by the American Civil Liberties Union, “racial profiling is the discriminatory practice by law enforcement officials of targeting individuals for suspicion of crime based on the individual’s race, ethnicity, religion or national origin.”…

    • 1882 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Police Body Cameras: Truth is a matter of perspective and perception. For example, when a crime occurs, witnesses can give starkly different statements on what took place. Sometimes the best teller of the truth can be video footage from a camera.…

    • 1036 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The two major roles for officers is the crime-fighting role and the order maintenance role. The difference is how crime is handled. For the crime-fighting role, their approach is more upright by battling and eliminating crime hands on. Another way to describe it can be “kicking ass and tacking names.” For the order maintenance role, they handle crime by tying to prevent before it happens.…

    • 733 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Should Police Wear Body Cameras? Every country in the world that has a Government, there is a police department in it. The police department plays a significant role in the implementation of the constitution. Police officers protect the lives and the properties of the citizens.…

    • 1058 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Now those rules will be hammered out from scratch by the state’s police training commission, after it receives recommendations from a task force (The promise of body cameras). Reforms are now being proposed to better expose police mistakes and to hold officers more accountable (Body cameras can help police to perfect their work). Complaints about police have declined in these communities. Cops seem to be more calm and courteous (Body cameras can help police to perfect their work). About a third of the nation’s 18,000 police departments are using wearable body cameras to record interactions between officers and citizens.…

    • 1580 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Importance Of Body Cameras

    • 1505 Words
    • 7 Pages

    (Morales). This is an exact example of why body cameras are needed. No one deserves to be berated by a police officer, if there are body cameras, the police will most likely receive a punishment . Moreover, victims of dirty police will now get justice for their unjust treatment. ” Video had played a particularly large role in complaints of improper or excessive use of force.…

    • 1505 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays