State Attorney General Letitia James said that this new policy of body cameras was put in place to keep the police transparent.
The policy makes it so that if there is a killing of an unarmed civilian or police misconduct, the public will be aware of everything before and after the death or misconduct. Though many might see this as a way for there to be substantial evidence to put “bad” cops in jail, I believe that this favors both police and citizens. By releasing the bodycam footage right away, the public will decide what happened and not be fed their information by the media. The ability to think and process data for yourself is something that we need right now. With all these news sites taking advantage of our political climate, it is essential to see raw footage that cannot be swayed by opinion. If a police officer shot and killed a person, which is all the public knew, that would sound like like full blown murder. If the public knew that the reason the officer opened fire was that the man had run to his car, opened the door, and instead of entering the vehicle, he reached inside, then that might be seen as self defense. The context that the body cam provides will make it clear as to what happened.
Another reason why I think this policy is so helpful is that the police can no longer withhold their footage from the public. There will be concrete evidence as to why the police officer did what he did. If a citizen is following the officer's orders, and the officer conducts himself in an unprofessional manner, he will no longer be able to hide behind the police's shelter. With this policy in place, I think that many of the cops that frequently partake in misconduct will be persecuted and fairly judged by the publics eye. This policy in New York is going to be incredibly helpful for those who will unfortunately deal with police brutality and those police who will deal with misaccusations.
What else do you think we as a country need to do to make the police more transparent?
Do you think it is important that the police be transparent with the public?
4 comments:
I believe this new policy by New York was a very good decision to make, especially with everything going on right now involving police brutality. I don't understand why police body cam footage should ever be allowed to be withheld, as its sole purpose is to provide concrete evidence anyway. Personally, I do not know of a better solution in making police more transparent because there's really nothing more transparent than raw footage. However, if I were to think of something, maybe another way would be that they must report any type of misconduct (of their colleagues) immediately to their police station.
Based on the information presented I believe that this policy is a wonderful idea. I say this because instead of relying on just the word of the cop or citizen, you will be able to refer back to some sort of footage. Hopefully, this will allow for more transparency and less confusion about who is in the wrong in the scenario presented. In addition, I believe that cops and citizens will think twice before acting in an inappropriate manner as they understand they are being recorded. As a whole, I think that this new policy will do nothing but great things for New York, and hopefully, more parts of America will follow in their footsteps.
I think that the new policy in New york is a great idea, there has been a lot of police brutality going on in our country, for honestly a while, but it has been very publicized recently. I think this is step in the right direction to one has the ability to control loose cannons and two to also give citizens a sort of ease so that they know what could possibly happen will be recorded and there will be a witness regardless if they are alone. I think it's interesting how the videos cannot be withheld because isn't he purpose of the cam to have evidence and prevent police brutality. Again, I think this is a step in the right direction but there is a lot more that needs to be done to stop whats happening in our country.
I also think that this is a good idea that can bring more evidence to the table with police brutality cases. More footage is always better to help determine whether a police was using unlawful force or doing things for self-defense. I think one major problem lies in the fact that most footage is not shown to the public. Even with George Floyd's case, it took a very long time before the full footage was released, and even then, these footages were taken down multiple times so as to not incite more uprisings. And oftentimes, the videos that are shown online to not show the whole context and situation, which I think is a major problem because then people are inclined to make judgements without understanding the whole situation
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