Advantages for Police Officers
Between the use of dash cameras in their cars and body cameras, the police can more easily defend their use of reasonable force. In fact, they can often show that force was necessary in order to restrain a suspect who was on drugs, violent or refused to comply with lawful police requests.
Advantages to Law-Abiding Citizens
The police cameras will also make it easier for people to expose police officers who use excessive force, especially when force has been applied to people who have dropped their weapons, are already handcuffed or have complied with similar police requests. In cases like this, it is valuable tool that the arrested or compliant citizen can use to prove that they were treated unfairly.
Disadvantages to Lying Criminals
The best use of body cameras, however, is that it will make it easier in some cases for the police to prove that a criminal was breaking the law. For example, they will be able to prove that a criminal assaulted them, tried to run them over in a car, or was driving dangerously or breaking other laws.
There is another advantage that lying criminals may not think about. Sometimes, when criminals are first arrested, they may blurt out things before they have had time to think up a good lie or talk to an attorney ... and it is all recorded.
On Halloween 2015, for example, a man drove a U-Haul truck the wrong way on a one-way street, crashing into a crowd in downtown Los Angeles, injuring eight people. The first thing he blurted out was that he had smoked a marijuana cigarette before getting behind the wheel. He was immediately arrested at the scene for felony driving under the influence charges. It will be very difficult for him to go back later and say that it happened because of a pot-hole or because a dog ran in front of his vehicle or some other ridiculous lie.
The body cameras have become an extension of cases when people have called 911 to report that their drugs, illegal weapons and similar possessions have been stolen. Of course, in those cases the police are more than willing to show up to help them locate the drugs or guns that they have already admitted to possessing!
Fortunately, criminals who are on drugs at the time of their arrest (and many are) are often not thinking clearly at the time of their arrest. While they may think that body cameras will protect them from excessive force, they often forget that they can also be used against them. It has just become much more difficult for criminals to get away with lying ... and that benefits the rest of us!
You are reading from the blog: http://lies-and-liars.blogspot.com
Photo credit: www.morguefile.com
