In the past few decades, better policing has been responsible for a steady decrease in almost every form of crime in the United States. Broken Windows policing, largely instituted in the 1990s, works, and everyone in the country has benefited from safer communities.
That said, no system is perfect and police officers make mistakes. Increasingly, those mistakes are documented for the country in the form of videos captured via the personal smartphones of those on the scene when an incident occurs. In some cases, police have tried, and continue to try, to assert their right to quell the use of cameras, but that's a mistake. Instead, the police should embrace this new era of video accountability and take it even further.
Part of the solution is for officers to each wear a personal camera, but there's even more they can do. Another solution is for police everywhere to use new drone technology and HD video devices to capture every aspect of every scene in which they're engaging a potentially troublesome situation. Cameras on each officer, cameras mounted on police dashboards, wide angle cameras mounted on the roofs of police cars, and advanced personal drones with cameras. The philosophy for police organizations everywhere should be, "you want video, we got your video!"
For example, imagine using the new Lily Camera at a scene similar to the one which took place in McKinney, TX. The police arrive at the scene, see what is going on, and one officer reaches back and unhooks the drone from it's clip and throws it up into the air. The props engage on the drone and it ascends to a height of 15 or so feet and begins to follow the officer as he walks toward the scene, video camera actively recording everything as it goes. At the same time, the other officer engages the camera on the roof of the police car and orients it toward the scene to capture a fixed, ground level view of the scene. And both officers' personal cameras activate for the first-person view of the scene.
Clearly, no officer is perfect and they will know, and feel acutely, that they are under the microscope. The fact is, whether the police do this or not, they are under a microscope. They are and will be increasingly as video technology improves. So let's just acknowledge reality and insure that video taken is full and complete and can be used to show the public exactly what has happened rather than relying on footage edited by an individual or a news agency, possibly to present the most negative, confrontational, and dramatic impression possible.
Not all news agency behave this way, but there are a growing number of smaller organizations which derive ratings from drama. For them, the more drama, the better, even if it's not a perfectly accurate depiction of what happened. News agencies like that will be far less likely to slant a story if a full and complete version of the video exists and is available right from the start. Witnesses at a scene may also be less likely to slant their stories if they know they too are on video at the scene.
Full and complete coverage protects the interests of the police and the public in that it helps everyone to know exactly what happened. And rather than telling people not to record video, the police should welcome it. This says two very important things to the public:
- We, the police, hold ourselves to the highest standard of behavior
- We welcome public scrutiny
I think, in general, the public knows police officers aren't perfect and make mistakes. Police are, rightfully, held in high regard by the public, and this will over time help maintain their reputation as honest, hard working women and men who protect citizens and communities where we live and work.
The path forward is simple:
- Accept the reality of officers being constantly captured on video as they go about their jobs
- Embrace the video revolution and leverage it to protect the interests of the public and the police themselves.
Yes, video footage of incidents have been a challenge for police. At the same time, it represents an opportunity. The clock cannot be turned back, so it makes sense to embrace that opportunity and use it in such a way that it offers maximum benefit to the police and the public.
