Stuff You Should Know - How Police Body Cameras Work

Episode Date: October 3, 2017

Cops wearing cameras is a new thing. So new that we aren't entirely sure of all the ramifications that go along with them just yet. In theory they should protect both police and citizens, but as we learned, they are no magic pill against police brutality or the death of cops on patrol. Join us as we dive into this complicated issue today. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey friends when you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in Manitoba who got the idea to Airbnb the backyard guest house over childhood home now The extra income helps pay her mortgage. So yeah, you might not realize it But you might have an Airbnb to find out what your place could be earning at air bnb.ca Slash host on the podcast. Hey, dude, the 90s called David Lacher and Christine Taylor stars of the cult classic show Hey, dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces We're gonna use hey, dude as our jumping-off point But we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s

We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it Listen to hey, dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Welcome to stuff you should know from house.works.com Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There's Jerry over there. So this is stuff you should know The ever-expanding law enforcement edition Yet another yeah We just did one didn't we? Yeah, I can't remember which one it was

Yeah, I'll run together now. Yeah, we've done a lot. Yep, body cameras And I kind of want to pick this one out thought well I don't know if there's a whole lot there, but it ended up being a little more interesting than I thought to be Yeah, there's a lot there. Yeah, at least culturally too. Totally. So, um, we're talking body cameras and they're pretty Straightforward at their base But once you kind of start looking at like the cultural baggage Associate with them why they're being used it. It is a pretty mushrooming topic for sure

and apparently Back in 2005 the Brits started using them and they ran some yeah, because I mean like the city of London I don't think there's a square inch that isn't under surveillance. You know, yeah, and they're just pretty uh technologically Um forward I think sure like the first cell phone I ever saw was in London Oh, really? Yeah I was thinking like Japan and Korea for that kind of stuff Well, maybe there too, but I didn't go to either one of those places in the early 90s

I got you. So you're like London's in your head for that. Yes. So, um With with I guess the UK in particular once they started using body cameras They started using them more and more and more And that's definitely the case with the United States more recently um and apparently there's a There's a pilot program that really started the whole thing off back in 2012 in a little town called Rialto, California

Which is about 50 miles east of Los Angeles. Yeah, and in Rialto I'm not sure what the impetus was but the police chief and a criminologist got together and said Let's let's try this They gave half of the police force body cameras to wear and then switched and gave the other half I guess the second half of the year throughout all of 2012 Yeah, and what they were mainly tracking were two different things Uh, incidences of police force and then civilian complaints against officers Um, generally after use of police force, but just complaints period. Yeah, basically and the results are pretty surprising. I think

Yeah, um, they uh, the officers who wore the cameras Uh used force half as often just generally would use 50 percent Uh, I get well not 50 percent less force. That's a little misleading They would use force 50 percent less Of the time of the time. Yeah. Um, and then the complaints filed. They said they couldn't really Um, there were so few complaints. It couldn't really draw a good statistical Conclusion, but there was a 90 percent reduction Compared with 2011 of complaints. Right and they found out other stuff too. I looked into the study

um And this is just the commentary from the research team. These aren't like facts and figures But you know, you do a study like this and then they analyze it then they say well, this is what I think um, they say that Their research shows that people tend to adhere to social norms and change their conduct once they're aware that their behavior is being observed Um, and it the body worn cameras convey a straightforward pragmatic message You're being watched videotaped and expected to follow the rules and apparently this uh, what they call a self-awareness effect Is a neutral third eye that?

Works on both sides. They said It suspects tend to cool down their aggressive actions more And it deters officers from reacting excessively or unnecessarily with force So it kind of works both ways And uh, the final thing I thought was really interesting was Uh, it had what they called a spillover effect, which was even officers that weren't Using the cameras because they did like you said with half the force at a time

They had fewer, uh Incidences of force used and they speculate that they just think there's a conscious effort then going on to make, uh To improve their behavior so that the the officers that had the cameras being watched didn't like Have an advantage or a disadvantage like They sort of normalize the whole thing even if they weren't wearing a camera. Huh? I had not heard that part at all Yeah, I mean it's a speculation, but it sort of makes sense. Well, so this the rialto study is really, um Often cited because it was the first of its kind in the united states and because the results were so surprising and then

So rialto the city immediately was like, okay all officers now have body cameras after the the results came in Yeah, and it just so happened that this took place the study took place Um, right before a couple of very high-profile police involved deaths eric garner Um, and then michael brown. Yeah, and michael brown's death in particular Raised the issue of body worn cameras, which is a the general term for the the cameras police are wearing um because Darren wilson who shot michael brown the police officer who shot him six times

um What gave one account of the story and witnesses gave another account of the story? Yeah, and so when michael brown's death kind of became part of a national conversation And especially with eric garner's death too, which immediately proceeded. I think like a month before back in 2014 um Eric garner's death was full-on videotaped by a guy who was standing there recording it on a cell phone Yeah, and it it got out and it was released to the public and it started this national conversation about police brutality um

and But it also had this other Real aspect to it that this conversation might not be happening were it not for video Documentation of these of eric garner's death So the fact that this is happening at a time right after rialto has had this study people are looking around saying This there's entire swaths these communities Um have had this what was called an a simmering distrust of the police and they've had it forever But now all of a sudden the rest of the nation's paying attention to this very important issue

um And this these body cameras work so well for this little town east of los angeles Maybe we should start to institute those and all of a sudden the department of justice Start shelling out 43 million dollars in grants for local law enforcement to buy body cameras And there was this this idea that good the problem solved But to a lot of people and at least in part myself included It kind of seems like This could just be a bandit. Does it actually solve anything or does it actually just underscore the distrust on both sides?

Like I don't trust that you're not going to file a false report about me being brutal on you So I'm recording you and I have to wear this because the federal government knows that you don't trust me and I might beat you up Uh extra to do judiciously so if If neither side trusts one another and you just have a video camera observing the whole thing Does that actually solve anything or does it just underscore the distrust? That's that's probably the biggest question to me that came out of researching this episode

Yeah, I think for me it's it's not a magic pill by any means, but it's another tool that can help Right, but but what I think that then the issue to me then is You can't just overly rely on that one tool I think it kind of has a tendency to lull people into complacency like okay We've got this tool out there now. We don't have to worry about the actual underlying issues Yeah, and we'll get into I mean, there's a bunch of reasons why it's not a magic pill. We'll get into all those later, but um as of right now It was hard to get 2017 statistics, but I got one from about a year ago that said 43 of the 68 major cities now

Uh, have you know what they call the major police forces in the u.s. Now use body cameras However 95 percent Say that they will begin to use them and are you know taking steps to do so um But however they Here and this is one of the issues of why it's not a magic pill um

Only three percent uh of these And this is a survey only three percent of the officers reported recording seven plus hours per day And that's in a in a typical I think what do they work generally 12 hours at a time? Yeah, from what I understand. So only three percent are recording seven of those hours 49 percent recorded Less than 50 percent recorded three or fewer hours per day right um

So that's one of the big issues is Some departments will I mean it varies from department in locality to locality and what the rules are Some of them say all right. Well, here's your body camera, but you don't have to use it. Um, some of them say use it during any, um Confrontation with a citizen Any call you have to make? Yeah Some say well you got to turn them off when you go into a private residence because As we'll talk about a little later the aclu

You know, it's a privacy issue when you're filming people without their consent that could potentially be released But surprisingly a little bit the aclu eventually kind of Said no we would rather have the officers wear these Even though it's a privacy issue for citizens, right? It's a tricky tricky thing. Oh man It is a can of worms like no other um, but we I mean, I think everyone knows what these are we haven't even said yet

These are cameras that police officers wear on their body Um, the ones I've mostly seen they wear sort of on their chest. Yeah, like where their cb used to be Yeah, uh, some of them though are on the shoulder or on the helmet Um, or on the collar, but mostly I've seen the one that it kind of actually looks like a little cb Whatever you call it not a cb handle because that's rubber ducky in the in the truck Um, what? You know the cb handle is what your name is right right and rubber ducky was from convoy. I think oh, was it?

I think so the the movie or the song the moot. Well the song was from the moot or the improv troupe Oh man, those guys are great. Yeah, so what up the the receiver, but you talk into it the mouthpiece. Okay I'm just call it the walkie-talkie part the walkie-talkie part. Hmm. Uh, anyway, it's generally mounted on the chest and Uh, there are many manufacturers that make these now. Um, some of them Are wireless some of them have high-def some of them have one touch activation and uh, ultra wide angle Because that's one of the issues why it's not a magic pill like the view that they get If it's not a wide angle is a chest high view of

Whatever the officer's body is pointed at right not necessarily what their face is looking at where their eyes are looking and It's It's okay, but you know, it's not it's not A solve for everything and all issues. No, it's not because we'll get into later You know if if something happens off camera that isn't captured like a suspect reaching for a gun And but on camera all of a sudden the cops just standing there and then the next thing You know, he pulls his gun out and shoots the guy

It's like well that that cop just went berserk Yeah, because the camera didn't capture that thing. Most of them have a time in date stamp Some of them have the badge number of the cop. Some of them have gps coordinates Some of them take still photos Some stream to remote devices Uh, very few of them. Can you actually is it like a iPhone where you can as a screen that you can watch it? Uh, but some of them can hook up to an app to your phone where you can watch it. Yeah I advanced I read this article about the one that taser is putting out. It was largely about that was by

It was a motherboard article by alex pastronack and he um Talks about how one of the big concerns Is in the addition of facial recognition like computer facial recognition. Yeah Because supposedly I didn't know this half Of americans have their face in a facial recognition database already. Yeah So if you're just somebody walking past one of these cameras and it has facial recognition attached to it It will say oh, well there went josh clark. He was here on this date at this time and he's wanted for murder

Right. Well, that was part of the point It's like well, you know the the camera can pick it up and then the database can let you know go get that guy He's wanted for murder Um, but also if you're just a private citizen is your your The your right against unlawful search and seizure being um violated by that kind of thing apparently that is definitely a direction that That um these cameras are starting to go now like facial recognition will soon be

The next step as they're deployed further and further. It's going to be like a a common feature on them. Yeah another feature that Uh, most of these cameras have now and this is a very interesting one because it's kind of played out recently To be significant is a buffering pre-record so If this camera is on it's recording, but it records in 30 second or 60 second intervals With no audio most of the time. Gotcha. So what's happening is even if the cop has not pressed record

It's recording and erasing over itself constantly Um, if it's turned on So what happens when the cop hits record is it's going to have that 30 or 60 seconds tagged onto it And that gets saved Which can be a big asset if the cop, uh, you know A lot of times the cop will see something and turn it on but they have just missed what's happened But it'll grab that 30 seconds which can be a big help

Or in the case of baltimore, it can bust a cop planning evidence Yeah, I saw that too. So what that to me was more like interpretation of video. What is your what was your take on it? Well, no, there were two of them. The most recent one was interpretation of video I think there was one previous to that Where it actually caught the cop planning evidence because he didn't know that the 30 second buffer was happening Oh, really? I didn't see that one. Uh, and then that may have been I'm not sure in this case But sometimes it's uploaded to a cloud. Yeah, and it's there Right. Uh, the the second one I think was

What it looks like is that the cops took a made a concerted effort to organize and deploy their cameras at specific times to get away with planning evidence So that's the speculation. This is all very brand new in the news. I see but uh, you know, they're cops saying like do you have yours on? You're not supposed to have yours on yet saying things like that And of course the the ACLU and the prosecutors are saying this is clearly the cops trying to Coordinate this thing with their cameras. Yeah, the staging with reality. Yeah, and that's

Something that it's going to start happening more and more. I mean Ideally all all cops are doing really good work Uh, and you don't have to worry about that But you know, there's been plenty of cases over the years of bad cops doing bad things and now with these body cameras They're going to have to find a way to get around it. Yeah, and I want to can I just say something real quick So so the the whole issue to me is this right? Like, um, I think I probably come off as distrustful of cops sometimes and to me, um

So as a society We give cops like a tremendous amount of power over us, right? And we give it to them in exchange for them up, you know Upholding the law. Yeah and protecting us. Yeah, right, but the problem is is if that trust Is broken Then that's a huge issue because you go suddenly from Because you can't do anything about it And you go from being a protected citizen to being a hostage of the state, right?

So that means to me that police have to be like above reproach That they have to be As angelic as possible, right? And that if they're they're Um If they're that if they're called into question for something There shouldn't even be the slightest hint that they're being protected or it's being covered up or anything like that And government needs to step in and do something about it and that has not been the case government has broken down in its role Of overseeing police when the question of trust is brought up

And what you're left with then is a citizenry that It says I don't trust the cops any longer and just as bad as that. I don't trust the governments to root out bad cops Um when the trust is broken. Yeah, but that power structure is still there. That doesn't exactly exactly So we're all hostages now to the cops. That's it's clear than ever now. That's that's my problem I'm not saying that that is necessarily the case or that even if it is the case it's the case across the board I think there are plenty of plenty and plenty of good cops out there who really do hold themselves to a very high standard but the fact is there are bad cops out there too, and I don't believe that bad cops are rooted out and prosecuted

like they should be And that the trust between the citizens and the police has eroded as a result and the government has totally dropped the ball in in repairing that Well, yeah, and especially tough too and like every uh Every bad cop documentary you've ever seen 100 of them the first thing you hear cops saying as well The first rule is you got to cover for your buddy cops

Sure, like even if you don't agree with them, you don't write out a cop And so then you're like, but I think cops also subscribe almost across the board to what's right is right though You know what I mean? Yeah, sure And that they do kind of tend to to go toward that I like to think that I want to think that Um, and I hope I'm not being naive in thinking that All right, you want to take a break? Yeah. All right, let's do it. We'll talk a little more about body cameras On the podcast hey, dude the 90s called david lasher and christine taylor stars of the cult classic show Hey, dude bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces

We're gonna use hey, dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it It's a podcast packed with interviews co-stars friends and non-stop references to the best decade ever Do you remember going to blockbuster? Do you remember nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair Do you remember aol instant messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper Because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your game boy blowing on it and popping it back in

As we take you back to the 90s Listen to hey, dude the 90s called on the iHeart radio app ample podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Hey, i'm lance bass host of the new iHeart podcast frosted tips with lance bass The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road Ah, okay. I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself? What advice would lance bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do you've come to the right place because i'm here to help this. I promise you. Oh god Seriously, I swear and you won't have to send an sos because i'll be there for you

Oh, man, and so will my husband michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that michael and a different hot sexy teen crush Boybander each week to guide you through life step by step not another one Kids relationships life in general can get messy. You may be thinking this is the story of my life Just stop now if so tell everybody you everybody About my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye Listen to frosted tips with the lance bass on the iHeart radio app apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts All right, we're back with a little more of the mundane which is the cost of these things They can go up to about 900 bucks or as low as the low hundreds

Um, let's just say an average of four or 500 bucks for a system Um, and if you have a large police force of six 800 cops, that's a lot of dough Um, it is but uncle sam is offsetting a lot of that. Yeah for sure and and I think Everyone is in favor of these I mean, I think our article points out In a very astute way like ideally these things can provide clarity, but at the very least It's just another measure in place to help protect citizens and police Yes, but there's a group

who say no these are kind of a bad idea and I find it suspicious that the government is um supporting this so so wholeheartedly that it's just um I'm advancing the surveillance state that much more normalizing the idea of people being recorded Everywhere they go all the time even in interacting with other people Yeah, so I think there are some people who just don't even like the idea of of body-worn cameras at all Well citizens and cops probably right um, so

Another big problem uh or not. Well, I guess it is sort of a problem or a challenge at least is is how to store this information Um depending on where you are like they use oakland as a as an example in this article 600 cops 600 body cameras generates about seven terabytes of video every month and um storing the stuff is a big Challenge because depending on where you are you have a lot of rules in place Because this is evidence potentially right and it's you know, you can't just store it any way you like in oakland They have to keep it for two years of anything that's involved in an investigation. It's longer than that um

Duluth, minnesota, they point out 30 days Laurel, maryland has six months like That's a lot of data and the security standards are really Uh strict and they got to figure out how to store this stuff how to do it safely and Because people that know how to make money are are behind this there are companies that very smartly are coming up with complete systems That will offer a police department say hey, we got you covered. We will take care of your storage

We will comply with all your rules and regulations We'll train your people because you got to hire in-house people just to keep track of the data Uh, and we'll do it all for you Exactly like taser apparently has one heck of a system Um, where when the when the officer puts their Body-worn camera on the dock to charge it simultaneously starts uploading Um, all of it all of the day's recording, right? Yeah So again, it goes to the cloud

Um, and multiple people have access to it, but it's any interaction with the video is logged Automatically by the system. Yeah If somebody goes to delete it like only certain people have access to delete files Yeah, but again multiple people do and so if somebody goes to delete it they um They're the other people who have the ability ability to delete it are notified. So it's Yeah, it spreads out accountability. Yeah, so it's like well, wait a minute I'm going down too for letting you delete it if so. What are you deleting this for kind of thing? Right? Um, it's a pretty smart system like from what I read from pastor neck in particular his article

It was like taser's got it going on But if you if you take the software away from it and the You know the led light attached to it and all that stuff It's really what you have is basically a gopro camera It's the it's the highly Encrypted and protected software that goes along with it that really makes it like law enforcement specific Yeah, I think in a lot of these places the da even has access remotely to this footage. Yeah, which is pretty interesting

Yeah the thing that that worries me a little bit is the The situations where the local police department has their own employees who are responsible for keeping and maintaining and storing The the um video. Yeah, it should be it should be larger than that You know, that's too localized. Yeah, I mean this it's sort of like It makes me think of all the movies I've seen where the uh, the evidence locker Is guarded by like a dude, right and someone comes down there and they're like, uh, you know in the movie

It's you know, I heard jacked up my hand man. I can't sign in today Just uh, let me in I gotta look at I gotta look at something for my case, right? And then they're in there, you know, taking apart a gun and putting it in their pants to take out Yeah, or what movie was that pounds of cocaine? That's every movie. Yeah, that's every movie ever made and of green gables Even had a scene like yep. Absolutely that frogs movie you were talking about. Yeah, that had it in there Yeah, I was right. Apparently I added a superfluous exclamation point. Yeah, what's it called just frogs? Not frogs. It's just frogs. Was it frogs? Frogs So, um, one of the criticisms I've seen though is it's like, well, wait a minute. Why why don't you trust us?

Surely we can police our own video be trusted to place our own video It's like no the very fact that the video exists means that you aren't trusted So no, you shouldn't have full jurisdiction over it because if this video is meant to If it's meant because we don't trust you the citizens and we don't trust you the cops But you the cops are the ones who are actually in control of this video. That's lopsided. That's not a good solution It's not a full solution. I should say Right because they wouldn't turn that over to the citizen. Say why don't you keep track of this? No, that's a big issue too is who gets to see it. Yeah, well a lot of uh,

a lot of cities have a have laws in the books where if you You Like a like a tv station can ask for it and they have to give it to them Yeah through uh, not foya, but local state. Um disclosure laws. Yeah Which is another big can of worms it is because You got to give the other side as well too, right so

Like if a if a police officer dies in the line of duty and their body camera is recording it which happened in arizona Man, did you see that video? I did it was it's had anxiety the whole time watching it It was an officer named tyler stewart. Yeah, very sad. It was extremely sad to see He was murdered by some guy named robert smith who just drew a gun after like three minutes of questioning Yeah, and I didn't I don't know about you, but I didn't see that coming I didn't either. It was just like everything's normal. Normal. Yeah, it looks like it's super shady No, uh, and then of course you find out afterward that like he'd been contemplating suicide Yeah, and he you know like the reason he was there is because he trashed his girlfriend's apartment

Yeah, and he had a lot of problems going on But yeah, I mean I was putting myself in the cop shoes And I'm like I would have not suspected anything out of this guy there. No, he was disarming for sure. Yeah But the but uh tyler officer stewart recorded his own death at the hands of this guy. Yeah and the um local media was like well, we want to see it and apparently arizona has um FOIA laws that are um That say okay. Well the media gets it. You have to you have to release that which is apparently pretty rare. Yeah, but in this case it's like

It doesn't doesn't the doesn't the family of the uh of the officer have any rights to be spared This being out there on the internet for any anybody who wants to see this guy's death You know forever. Yeah, I mean of course they cut it But still you know like anyone can look this up on youtube. That's just Very I don't know it's shameful. So the the issue cuts both ways, especially with privacy Like you do you protect the citizens privacy? Do you protect the cops privacy? Yeah, do you protect? No Would you take the wiki leaks? Approach and protect nobody's privacy right like it happened

just keep it raw and And and if it's open to interpretation then settle it in court kind of thing, you know, yeah Yeah Who knows all right. You want to take another break? Man, I keep working us into breaks man. I'm sorry. No, you're doing great All right, we'll take another break and uh talk a little bit about how these things work and um Why they're not magic pills right after this

On the podcast hey dude the 90s called david lasher and christine taylor stars of the cult classic show Hey, dude bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces We're gonna use hey, dude as our jumping off point But we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it It's a podcast packed with interviews co-stars friends and non-stop references to the best decade ever Do you remember going to blockbuster? Do you remember nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair

Do you remember aol instant messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your game boy blowing on it and popping it back in As we take you back to the 90s Listen to hey, dude the 90s called on the iHeart radio app ample podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Hey, i'm lance bass host of the new iHeart podcast frosted tips with lance bass The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road Ah, okay. I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself? What advice would lance bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation?

If you do you've come to the right place because i'm here to help this. I promise you Oh, god Seriously, I swear and you won't have to send an sos because i'll be there for you Oh, man, and so my husband michael um, hey, that's me Yep, we know that michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life Step by step Oh, not another one. Uh-huh kids relationships life in general can get messy You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody

Yeah, everybody About my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye Listen to frosted tips with the lance bass on the iHeart radio app apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts Okay, chuck. We're back You know, I'll tell you one thing. I looked up taser stock yeah if you bought in

I think 10 You're doing pretty good Yeah, because of their body worn camera program. Yeah, it was like five dollars and before this I think they just Only made like tasers and non-lethal weapons But when they got into the body camera market their stock went from like five bucks I think it peaked at like 35 or 40. Yeah, not bad. Not bad at all. Good for them Yeah, and again, I can't remember the name of it, but if you read that as alec pasternak article, it's It's really sharp system and I own zero stock in taser like I'm just a fan

I'm not a fan even of their non-lethal weapons, but their their body worn camera systems is pretty smart. It seems like Yeah, I'm a fan of smart things. Sure if you're gonna design a system It should be foolproof and work well and yeah store everything you need it to not break down right Seems like they got it going on. Yeah um So one of the other reasons that uh, like I said earlier, this is it's not a magic pill because you're only getting this one It's not our article points out very astutely that it's not an unbiased view still um, if you had

six or eight Uh, like if you're in london you had six or eight cameras and different angles on different light posts And you could coordinate this thing and fully see everything that happened right it may be unbiased truly But uh, just a single shot from a body camera I think that single angle Is not unbiased by any means. No, like did you see and that's about it. Did you see the nurse wobbles arrest? Oh, the Utah nurse who refused to draw the blood of the suspect while he was unconscious. So if you just watched Um, the arresting officers jeff pain's body camera. Yeah

It I mean like because it's up close and personal it goes like suddenly just basically goes dark when it's pressed up against her back And it shows like very little of anything It was because of the other officer that was with him's body camera. Yeah, um that you get like, oh wow that really was A lot of force Unnecessary force that this guy was using on this lady That you wouldn't have gotten just from the footage from his body camera Right and that having supporting video evidence Definitely expands the the context one way or the other

It's interesting though. We're getting to a point where you're gonna have um A say a crime on a on a officer stop of a car with a car camera dashboard camera Let's say two officers body cameras The people inside the car filming with their iPhones. Let's say two So you've got five different points of view going on that people Courts and juries are gonna have to sift through da's

Defendants are gonna have to look at all this stuff and try and piece together what happened And this is all new like previously you did this from testimony only right exactly So like are we opening ourselves up to a time when da's are Uh are less willing to bring up charges unless there is footage, you know, yeah, I wonder But I mean it doesn't sound like there's gonna be much a lack of it. There's a company called um Wolfcom who makes body warrant cameras for police has is also releasing one for civilians It's basically the same thing without their police software

Other like just somebody just wears at all times Yeah, basically to film the police while the police are filming them and they they say it's perfect for protests Improving legality right and there's like um, there's like a button the power button or stop or the record button Has to be pressed a certain way So even if like somebody's bumping into you're beating you up your camera won't stop recording Yeah, it's like good lord like the fact that this is the climate that that's like a selling point Yeah, it is really unsettling and sad, you know It is

Like hey everybody come get your body warrant cameras because you need to film the people who are filming you because You can't trust the even this measure That's being used to supposedly protect your rights. It's just crazy that it's crazy that we're in this state in this country It's depressing it is That raised another point to me to check the idea of having all these different Points of view or video documentation. This is also coming at a time when Then we are starting to see editing software where you can take video and make it do anything Yeah, thank you and make it say anything you can make it you can do anything with video

Yeah, like there was a moon landing How is that going to affect? Yeah, you know the use of video and in documentation for court cases too Well, and we've already seen just with baltimore, you know, what can happen when Cops now have to wear these and where they're trying to coordinate who's got whose camera on did you have your camera on At the what about that 30 second buffer? Geez, it's all just sad that we're at that state now to wear But you know, it's also a good thing that

like for how many years were bad things happening without any yeah citizen I mean there was no recourse, you know for so long. Yeah, and there still isn't to a large degree This is just a little small thing. No, it's true. But I mean that has to be a certain level of at least gratification among people who have lived with distrust of the police or have been abused as a whole by police

um for decades That people are now finally starting to be like, oh man, this is crazy. You how long has this been going on? Yeah, because there's a light being shined on it um And so in that sense, yes, it's crazy that we're at this state right now in our our country, but You know, maybe it's just a growing pain toward moving to a better place Yeah, you know that rialto study too and their summation. They also said something about um I can't remember exactly how they put it but something about

How they found that it they think that it also requires police to take to take more verbal abuse from people um Which you know, isn't fun But sort of like The days are over where if you smart off to a cop, they can't just throw your face on the ground Right and put their knees through your cheekbone, right because you've smarted off to them Um, so they they didn't I don't think they weighed in either way on what that means They just said what you know, it looks like cops are gonna have to start enduring a little more

Talk back from the drunk guy at the bar Uh, without diving right into excessive force because they were pissed off Now drunk guy at the bar notwithstanding. What are the big things that that these body cameras are touted for? I think you said it early on Um, is that people behave differently when they know they're being recorded, right? So that officers won't have to take verbal lashings from people Well, maybe so as often and so that might that the very presence of the cameras supposedly um

Can keep situations from escalating or it can actually de-escalate a situation Just if the officers like I need you to know you're being recorded right now Do they have to say that supposedly straighten up? I don't know if they have to or not Well, we're in such the early nascent days of this. It's um, yeah, this is sort of an early podcast to see What ramifications are gonna happen later on, you know, who knows? Yeah, and one of the things that I saw was that this is a situation. This is a technology that's gotten a lot Of press. Oh, yeah, but it's still Very early on an actual like academic study of it. Sure supposedly and including the realto study most studies are not

Published in journals and aren't peer reviewed. They're just you know studies Largely carried out by like criminologists or or scientists Yeah, but also by the local police departments carrying the studies out on their own department, right? There's supposedly only been two Peer reviewed journal studies published on body worn cameras so far um, and one of them was on The effect of giving an officer leeway on when to press record, right? How does that impact things like um, the use of violence?

And this this 2016 study in the Journal of Experimental Criminology found that compared to the control group Um, if the officer had very little leeway in deciding when to record meaning they had to record all the time um That physical the use of physical violence decreased by 37 percent. Yeah But in situations where officers had a lot of leeway in deciding when to press record or not Um, it was 71 percent higher than the control group Yeah, the this whole when is it recording and when is it not as the seems like the biggest sticking point right now Yeah, and are we going to move to a future where?

They are absolutely required to record any interaction with a citizen Or they get suspended or something right like who knows what we're headed toward Yeah, like it's a big deal if they're not recording not like a Uh, you know, you gotta you're supposed to be recording kind of thing. I mean, I guess it from a good cop's point of view They should say like man, I want to record this thing because this is what's going to exonerate me in this atmosphere We have today. Yeah, but I think I do it right. I think cops are also scared that that that footage That it could also be like footage can be used against them even if it doesn't show anything. Yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah, I think yeah, I think it's a it's a man

It's just so fraught as a technology with complications to be to be used like this Yeah, you know and again the fact that we're using it says hey you guys don't trust you guys So we're going to keep these cameras here So everybody be cool Like that solves anything I wonder when cars are going to come equipped with built-in cameras that that You know record all around the car. Let's say I mean the camera is already there with you know, a lot of these

safety features All that's lacking is a record button Well, the cops have those for um, running license plates while they're driving down the street Oh, yeah, their cameras are just looking at license plates of the cars. They're driving past Yeah to to run them and there was one other thing I saw in that, um Fasco motherboard pastor knack article Um, he just kind of casually made mention that department stores hospitals airports

They're already using video facial recognition systems So if you walk into like Macy's or something I don't know specifically, but I'm just picking on Macy's that when you're on camera Your face is being run against the database to see if you're somebody that they should be worried about or maybe even call the cops about Oh, I thought you were gonna say that somebody that likes neckties and Hello, they may have that too. It depends on whether they got their software from taser or from Neiman Marcus. Yeah, I did not know that and that uh, That just takes profiling to a higher level, huh? Yeah. Well, or maybe not

If they're getting good information, then yeah, I guess you're right. You're right. I mean, that's not profiling. Is it it's ultra tailored profiling If someone walks in and they're like, well, this guy committed three acts of Of uh, shoplifting in the past year Right might want to watch him. Is that profiling? No, because it's specific to you not say your race or something like that. So yeah, it's it's difficult to argue that that at that point of it It's more just like the man, you know, that's being surveilled everywhere. Yeah So this is a good one Yeah, you got anything else? No, I'm interested to see where this goes plenty of follow-up stories over the years

I'm sure. Yep. It will happen. Yes. I'm sure as well um If you want to know more about body-warrant cameras police cameras, just look up police body cameras They'll bring up this really good article by julia leighton on how stuff works Since I said that it's time for a listener mail Uh, I'm gonna call this well I'm gonna call it a very cute email from a little kid Maybe I shouldn't read that one on this one

right He's got a slog through this and be like, this is the future. I have a hand on me. All right. So this was from uh, Noah he is five years old and is scottish um And his mom sort of supplemented the email with some little things here and there and then at the end she said, you know, he really Wanted to write into you guys personally. So I let him use my email account and uh, otherwise it is just his words And then a ps from mom Dear chosh

chosh h smart kid very cute I like listening to your podcast. I listen to it in the car and before I fall asleep My favorite facts is about an iceberg as big as jamaica and what to do in a tornado Uh, and then mom says in parentheses. He reminds me frequently to not go in a tunnel during a tornado We live in scotland where there are no tornadoes Uh, you're funny and I like learning about disasters as long as they're not too scary And my mama says I'm too little Can you do an episode about the different kinds of bridges and engineers?

I listened to that one you did but I'd like another Because i'm going to be a structural engineer and build bridges. Oh a sharp kid. Love. Noah parentheses. I'm five and I live in scotland Which is in europe Thanks. Thanks for the tip. Noah. Noah that is great. You are wonderful Uh, we appreciate you and mom adds this ps. I'm afraid there's one in the family who's not a fan Every time stuff you should know comes on in the car. My three-year-old daughter cries. No Not stuff you should know. I can't sing to that Oh, that's cute. She says sorry guys. You can't compete with disney and

Me personally, uh mom if you can record your daughter Screaming about how she doesn't like stuff you should know that's a ringtone and then Then record Noah talking about how he does love stuff. You should know In that lovely scottish accent. I for one would like to hear that. Yes. Same here and we'll even play it Um Yeah, thanks a lot. No, you're the bomb buddy in america. That means you're terrific. Yep Uh, and thanks to mom too for uh fostering that email. Yes way to go mom. It's great. You're all great If you are a cute kid who wants to tell us hi, we love hearing from you

Um, you can tweet to us at joshum clark Or at sysk podcast you can hang out with chuck on facebook.com slash stuff. You should know or slash Charles w chuck bryant You can take the traditional route and send us an email At stuff podcast at howstuffworks.com and as always join us at our home on the web stuff. You should know.com For more on this and thousands of other topics visit howstuffworks.com On the podcast hey dude the 90s called david lasher and christine taylor stars of the cult classic show Hey, dude bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use hey, dude as our jumping off point

But we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it Listen to hey, dude the 90s called on the i heart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Hey, i'm lance bass host of the new i heart podcast frosted tips with lance bass Do you ever think to yourself? What advice would lance bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do you've come to the right place because i'm here to help and a different hot sexy teen crush Boybander each week to guide you through life tell everybody you everybody About my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye. Bye. Bye

Listen to frosted tips with the lance bass on the i heart radio app apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts