LA Police Officers Suspected of Tampering With Their Monitoring Systems 322
An anonymous reader writes "An internal audit conducted by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) in March revealed that 'dozens of the [voice] transmitters worn by officers in Southeast Division were missing or damaged.' In the summer of 2013, this same division was found to have mysteriously lost 45% of the antennae placed on their cars to pick up the signals sent by their voice transmitters. The Southeast Division of the LAPD covers an area that has 'historically been marred by mistrust and claims of officer abuse.' For decades, the LAPD had been closely monitored by the U.S. Department of Justice, but a federal judge in 2013 decided to end that practice after being assured by the LAPD and city officials that the LAPD sufficiently monitors itself via dash-cams and voice transmitters. A formal investigation is currently being conducted to determine whether or not police officers intentionally subverted mandatory efforts to monitor and record their patrols."
Easy fix (Score:5, Insightful)
For any officer found with damaged or missing recording equipment, suspend without pay or confine to desk jockey. Unacceptable to claim equipment is broken or doesn't work so the policy goes to the wayside.
Re:Easy fix (Score:5, Insightful)
Just deduct the repair bill from their pay. They'll soon start working.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The antennas on the car are probably less than $10. The voice transmitters are probably $50-100. If they only do an audit once a year, it's a small price to pay for someone that doesn't want their actions being monitored.
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The article claims that they check the antennas before and after each shift, so they would know as soon as one was missing, and give the bill to whoever had the car during that shift.
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Re:Asinine (Score:5, Insightful)
it is for the officers own protection against false litigation.
see what i did there
Meh, money is freedom (Score:3, Informative)
Money is freedom. Economic security is freedom. You're not free so long as somebody can deprive you of food/shelter/health care/etc.
It's a job, not private life (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't surveillance of a private individual; this is monitoring the performance of someone doing their job; a job they are paid to do, a job they can opt out of, a job they have incurred obligations with regard to. It's perfectly legitimate.
Further, these people are given extraordinary power over citizens; the saw "with great power comes great responsibility" pretty much covers why monitoring them makes good sense from the citizen's POV. Even if we didn't know these particular officers have demonstrated that their cadre is well supplied with lawbreakers, and that more generally, they all are dishonest enough to observe the "thin blue line", it would still make sense to monitor them, just for their own assurance that specious claims against them could trivially be refuted. The fact that these idiots are intentionally killing that benefit by incapacitating the monitoring capability is a strong indicator as to why they're doing it: Almost certainly, something else is going on they are afraid will be seen -- add their known history of malfeasance, and we've got good reason to insist those cameras and audio recorders run though the entire shift, on every individual.
Re:It's a job, not private life (Score:5, Informative)
That's how I see it. If I'm at home, don't monitor me. If I'm accessing a vault full of cash, OK maybe. If I'm flying an armed fighter jet, I won't object too hard if they want to track me every time I go off course and engage my weapons.
Re:Asinine (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't do my job "under the color of authority". If you have special legal privileges that the common man does not, additional oversight becomes appropriate, where it wouldn't be for the common man. Corruption matters more.
Re:Asinine (Score:5, Insightful)
As I read these responses, I'm forced to wonder: would any of the posters tolerate having every spoken word recorded by The Boss throughout their shift? Even one of you?
1) Lots of people do already. For instance, call center employees.
2) While not necessarily at the 'recording every word' level, many more jobs have constant surveillance. Cashiers, for example, almost always have a camera pointed at them. Perhaps it's video only, but not always.
3) The police have the power to arrest you, injure you (if they claim it was necessary), even KILL you. What were the words of Uncle Ben? "With great power comes great responsibility". We need to hold the police greatly responsible for their actions.
Re:Whoa (Score:5, Insightful)
Not all human beings are able to arrest me.
Not all human beings are able to have their word taken over mine in court by default.
Not all human beings are able to injure me and get away with it.
Not all human beings are able to invade my home and get away with it.
Not all human beings are able to kill me and get away with it.
Not all human beings are able to restrain me and get away with it.
Not all human beings are able to force me to stop my car and get away with it.
Not all human beings are allowed to go fogging down the road, dangerously far over the speed limit just because some pretty lights are on and/or they're making a loud noise. ...and so on.
So look here: I'll grant you that cops aren't 100% faultless nor is it reasonable to expect them to be, but, I think it's important to point out that when a cop makes an actual mistake, we need to look really hard at it even if we conclude all the response that's required is pointing it out, and more data is better in that case.
Furthermore, when "not 100% faultless" really means "cop is a scumbag criminal", or "cop is aiding and abetting a fellow cop who is a scumbag criminal by conspiring to hide their misdeeds and is therefore also a scumbag criminal" then yes, we do need to see who and how they are hurting people as they violate the public trust so we at least have some chance to clean house. This is oversight of power in public service, and it is, I believe, *entirely* reasonable when any serious degree of force and/or authority is delegated.
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Now you're just completely hallucinating.
Here's the face of that: http://www.cato.org/raidmap [cato.org].
Cops get away with injuring people all the time, both on the street and in custody, not to mention via proxies in prison.
I didn't make it a horrible job. They did.
Re:Asinine (Score:5, Interesting)
Its not every word that is recorded. The recorder activates when they engage the sirens. They are only recorded in the process of doing their jobs.
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Its not every word that is recorded. The recorder activates when they engage the sirens. They are only recorded in the process of doing their jobs.
Wow. And they're complaining about that shit.
Oh, and I'm certain that no officer would ever abuse such a system that is only engaged 2% of the time...
Re:Asinine (Score:4, Insightful)
The difference here is A) My organization is not cloaked in the legitimacy of the state to use violence in the gain of civil order. B) My organization isn't known for beating black men to death, robbing people, raping women via searches, and harrassing people for no good reason.
If we were our organization would be rather unpopular. Something like this type of monitoring would inevitably follow, and you would either deal with it or quit.
Though on the ot her hand Chase bank basically got caught funding mass murder and no one is (to the public's knowledge) being surveilled.
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So if there were a bunch of blatantly race-related murders that cropped up you're answer is to "protect everyone from murder" instead of addressing that specific situation, because "it would be racist to address the killings of whites/blacks/asians."
People like you look for racism, sexism, or whateverism, in absolutely everything. We need to be vigilant against ACTUAL racism..of course. However, if you think what I said is racist, you need to get your race-ar recalibrated.
If an issue is recurring, AND the M
Re:Asinine (Score:4, Interesting)
Considering that we don't seem to be offered the choice of whether or not we're wiretapped, I feel no sympathy towards law enforcement being recorded while on duty. At least with cops, there is actually a good reason to do so.
Re:Asinine (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Asinine (Score:4, Insightful)
I know boat loads about call centers my first tech related job was in a call center, help desk for dial-up and later dsl.
I was actually trying to say if it's important enough that you need to record the college kid helping you setup dial-up or dsl then a police officer is far more important and should definitely be recorded
Re:Asinine (Score:4, Insightful)
This is crazy. It's not being recorded when you're on a call that makes call centers horrible, it's how you're treated the rest of the time. It's the parts where when you're not on a call you've got supervisors getting upset. It's when you acknowledge the person you're talking to is a human being with better things to do and get yelled at for not selling hard enough that makes it horrible. These things do not translate into recording the police.
Re:Asinine (Score:5, Informative)
I'm leery of reducing a job as important as police officer to call-center working conditions.
That's a straw man argument. Nobody has recommended that we "reduce police officer(s) to call-center working conditions". Recording their on-duty interactions is as appropriate for police officers as it is for pilots. When something goes wrong and innocent people die, the public deserves to know why so that lessons can be learned. That's why we have cockpit voice recorders, and that's why we should have video and audio recording of all police interaction with the public.
If they aren't doing anything wrong, they have nothing to hide, right...?
Re:Asinine (Score:4, Informative)
You are mistaken about how cockpit voice recorders work. They record much more than "the last two minutes of talk before a crash". They typically record two hours on a continuous loop, and in the wake of the MH370 event that will probably be increased to eight hours or more.
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Just deduct the repair bill from their pay. They'll soon start working.
Good luck with that given the power of their union.
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If their union is so powerful, how come they're subject to routine monitoring in this way at work?
It looks like the negative publicity from a not so great track record is exerting more pressure than anyone's union right now.
Re:Easy fix (Score:5, Insightful)
Just deduct the repair bill from their pay. They'll soon start working.
Seems like it would be more effective if judges held police responsible for proper functioning of their recording devices, and gave the benefit of the doubt to those that accuse the police of wrongdoing when the mandated surveillance equipment that could prove the allegations was mysteriously "out of order".
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Re:Easy fix (Score:5, Insightful)
For any officer found with damaged or missing recording equipment, suspend without pay or confine to desk jockey. Unacceptable to claim equipment is broken or doesn't work so the policy goes to the wayside.
I'd throw tampering and obstruction charges in on the second offense.
If anything, cops need to be held to the letter of the law more strictly than those of us who are not tasked with enforcing it.
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Once could be an accident. Twice starts a pattern.
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My argument would be more along the lines of: It's ok for them to be given the power they need to do their job as long as they are accountable. Monitoring systems ensures there is no abuse.
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I'd throw tampering and obstruction charges in on the second offense.
Ah, I see you're new to the whole "filing charges" thing. The correct filing should include (but is absolutely not limited to):
Evidence tampering, hindering an investigation, obstruction of justice, vandalizing government property, theft, fraud, abusing authority, circumventing electronic security, computer hacking, assault, providing material support to terrorists, and a "conspiracy to commit" of every one of those charges.
Re:Easy fix (Score:5, Interesting)
While I would normally agree here, we are talking about the people who sign up and take an oath to uphold the law....laws which they are clearly breaking by damaging public property. Worst, they are doing so with the intention of obstructing their own job of collecting evidence of crimes to present to the court. So in fact, they are obstructing justice, destroying property, and possibly breaking several other statutes at the same time.
This is nothing other people wouldn't be charged with for destroying police equipment willfully. I garauntee you if I took one of these devices and damaged it so it didn't work, I would be charged with all that and more.
So the reality is...in NOT charging them, the law is being applied differently.
Re:Easy fix (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait, what? We give the police the power to arrest, injure and even kill us without consequence, to accuse us and have their word taken over ours in a court of law, and we're not supposed to hold them to a higher standard? Are you completely out of your mind?
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As I finished that statement I realized we may not be in so much disagreement so much as a semantics battle.
I conceede. You are absolutely correct, a different standard should NOT be applied. However, the fact that they are police should be considered an aggrivating circumstance: One which increases the enormity of the crime: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... [wikipedia.org]
So not a different standard at all, but a different punishment, because it is a more enormous crime...by the same standards.
Re:Easy fix (Score:5, Insightful)
Justice is never found in applying the law differently to different groups.
Perhaps. However, there is an inherent inequality here because the law inevitably grants certain additional rights and powers to police officers that are not enjoyed by the common citizen. It is not unreasonable to assign proportionately greater responsibility to them as well.
Re:Easy fix (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is usually actually doing it without giving up more ground than you get. Law enforcement anywhere tends to think that oversight is a conspiracy to aid the bad guys, and resists thinking that they themselves are or even can be the bad guys. LAPD in particular [wikipedia.org]. That mindset goes back a long time and is undoubtedly entrenched at every level. Any moves which actually bring the LAPD under reasonable oversight will be resisted by damn near everyone.
With campaign finance reform, that's resisted for similar reasons, but there's competition working for it: a politician who says he wants to reform things might be hurt by it, but so will his opponents. With law enforcement, reform isn't really beneficial to anyone since it just hurts everyone and no one gets ahead by enacting it.
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Yes, those that do nothing are bad guys as well since it's their job to stop the illegal activities, especially those of other enforcement officers that are supposed to be stopping crime in a legal fashion rather than performing crimes. (Let the p
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Police officers share cars. Unless you inspect the vehicle at the beginning and end of every shift there is no way of knowing who ripped the antenna off. I would also bet that there are a fair number of antennas ripped off by non-police officers. Police cars are an easy targets for vandals. I wonder how many other antennas are removed from squad cars. If it is always just the voice antenna it would be an issue. Even then, maybe the voice antenna is just easier to remove and non-police vandals target it more
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Yes, those 99% bad cops sure give the 1% good cops a bad name! A cop who knows his buddy is on the take, or otherwise breaking the rules but goes along with it is still a bad cop, because his freaking job is to enforce the rules.
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So any cop you don't like, like the one who is going to testify against you, is easy to get rid of by just braking the antenna off on his car? Man, that's just a brilliant plan!
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To make it fair, have a checklist before they roll out the door that includes verifying that the transmitter and receiver and present and functional. Failure to follow the checklist and report non-functional equipment results in the above. This way legitimate breakages aren't punished (and therefor hidden) and you also shift it from a "we don't trust you" to a "you didn't follow procedure". While the fact is that you don't trust them, morale will suffer less from the latter than the former.
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the Police involved should be charged with crimes for such just like any other citizen would be.
I think you mean "should be". In reality, they may get beaten up, charged with resisting and interfering when all they did was piss off a policeman, or even planted drugs on.
The police needs to be held to a higher standard than the rest of us.
Should be punished (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Should be punished (Score:4, Insightful)
How do they know it is malfunctioning? It wouldn't surprise me if the system was designed to be tamper-resistant, so they may not have even read-only access to the data collected so they can't even sanity check if it is working.
Maybe an obviously broken antenna would indicate that it wasn't working, but I would imagine that might be assuming a lot about their technical knowledge and they may reasonably assume that some minor damage to an antenna doesn't mean its broken, based on experience with other antennas on other equipment.
I'm sure there's some deliberate malice going on here on some level, but then again, making them wholly responsible for the ongoing technical functionality of equipment they have little or no control or diagnostic ability or skill to manage would be reasonably objectionable.
There's also the unintended consequence of overly-severe penalties, one of which may be over-reporting potential damage due to the risks of not reporting it. The last thing you want is half the cars in a sector sitting in the motor pool and the officers unavailable for calls because they don't know if their widgets are broken.
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Apart from that there is not reason to go hard on the police officers. There is a simple social solution when problems like this arise.
Split them up. It works on bullies, criminal gangs and neo-nazis.
Relocate them to cities that doesn't have this problem and make sure that none of them works with each other.
Once they are partnered up with honest people and only honest people the undesired behavior will go away.
After a couple of years the can be brought back.
That way the problem disappears without the need t
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Apart from that there is not reason to go hard on the police officers. There is a simple social solution when problems like this arise.
Split them up. It works on bullies, criminal gangs and neo-nazis.
Relocate them to cities that doesn't have this problem and make sure that none of them works with each other.
Once they are partnered up with honest people and only honest people the undesired behavior will go away.
After a couple of years the can be brought back.
That way the problem disappears without the need to break necks or even prove anything.
-- methane-fueled
Putting even the most honest and trustworthy people into a system of power doesn't guarantee that there will be no abuses -- even honest people abuse their power [prisonexp.org].
But knowing that someone is looking over your shoulder at all times with surveillance *can* reduce abuses since a cop can't claim "He threatened me!" if no threat was captured on the surveillance device.
Re:Transfer (Score:3)
This is the preferred solution. After all that training, once an officer proves his eagerness to randomly break a few legs, it just won't do to let them go. That good LAPD conditioning has been disseminated throughout the country as these "rogue" cops take their skills and fucked-up attitudes out to rural America, the better to squelch any nascent bonds developing with the innocent citizens they intend to "protect and serve".
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There's also the unintended consequence of overly-severe penalties, one of which may be over-reporting potential damage due to the risks of not reporting it. The last thing you want is half the cars in a sector sitting in the motor pool and the officers unavailable for calls because they don't know if their widgets are broken.
No, that's not the last thing you want. The last thing you want are responders who beat up people based on whether they like them, or lie about what suspects said and ruin lives.
I think this can be remedied by having them test the gear every time they enter active status. Not "potential damage", but actual testing.
If pilots have to check their gear before flying, I don't think it's too much to ask that armed officers do the same. They are responsible for people's lives too.
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Simple answer, if the recorder isn't working, any complaint against the officer will be presumed true. Then make sure the officers have a way to test the equipment. You can bet that they will.
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SELECT count(id) FROM voicelog WHERE copid = 123 AND date = Now()
If it isn't greater than 0, flag it.
If they went to the trouble to make it tamper resistant, they probably went through the trouble to write a basic script to test it was reporting the data correctly. I do this on stuff that is way less important than tracking notoriously corrupt cops.
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Actually no, as you'd know if you had studied the subject, the law does not apply to the police.
As a mnemonic rule, imagine they were oddly dressed politicians, or very humble rich people.
Convenient malfunctions (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Convenient malfunctions (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Convenient malfunctions (Score:5, Informative)
Anyone remember the police beating case in Maryland where the dash cams of ALL SEVEN police cars on the scene simultaneously malfunctioned?
No ... and a Google search turns up nothing. Can you provide a reference?
Here's a reference:
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=428&s... [wtop.com]
Seven cars responded, all required to have dashcams, yet somehow no dashcam footage of the incident was available.
And here's an article with links to other cases where police video disappeared:
http://www.theagitator.com/201... [theagitator.com]
And I found it with my first Google search for
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...7 years ago doesn't seem like that long ago...
April 15, 2005 is almost 9 years ago on the nose. Nearly a decade by most measures. 10 years have made a difference. Cops used to tune people up pretty regularly in the 60's, 70's, 80's... and it tapered off a lot. I know things have happened to good people since then, but picking 2005 cases that went to a jury aren't exactly making a great case.
All the jury had to go on was her testimony and the testimony of 7+ police officers.
Again, they had at least as much information as we had - and they awarded her a small sum, presumably because they thought the slight was minor - cameras and a
Data mining to find the culprits? (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if the damage was reported and tracked over time, and if you could correlate this with who was assigned the equipment immediately prior? The results would probably paint a good heat map against the list of officers as to what subset was behind the damage.
The simple solution is make them document it (Score:5, Interesting)
It is possible people are vandalizing the cars (in general and though the public would vandalize ALL the antennas, not just one). The simple solution is make the officers report any damage and fill out paperwork indicating the cause. If they go a day with broken equipment unreported they're suspended without pay for day the first time with a day added per occurrence and fired after 5. If it's a repeated occurrence with an officer they should be monitored in secret by IA to observe if the officer is doing the damage themselves and if they are they should be fired and prosecuted for damaging government property. If the cars are being vandalized by the public they need better antennas that are vandal resistant.
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I suppose it's theoretically possible that vandals are risking arrest to remove -- and not break or damage -- a single antenna (out of the several on a cruiser), the one antenna that could embarrass or implicate officers in inappropriate/illegal behaviour, but it's ludicrous to suggest that it is likely or even probable.
Re:The simple solution is make them document it (Score:5, Insightful)
It is possible people are vandalizing the cars
Sure, but... "new rules were put in place requiring officers to document that both antennas were in place at the beginning and end of each shift. To guard against officers removing the antennas during their shifts, Tingirides said he requires patrol supervisors to make unannounced checks on cars."
"Since the new protocols went into place, only one antenna has been found missing,"
As soon as it became likely that the vandalism be caught, the vandalism suddenly dropped to almost zero despite the fact that only the officers knew of the change.
So no... it's not possible that the public is vandalizing the cars.
The Law (Score:5, Insightful)
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Speaking of which, if there's one group of public employees who should be video recorded in all their daily activities and meetings, it's politicians. If all their meetings with lobbyists were required by law to be recorded and streamed to the public, thin
Futile? (Score:4, Interesting)
From TFA: "Because cars in the Southeast Division had been equipped with cameras since 2010 and different shifts of officers use the same car each day, officials decided an investigation into the missing antennas would have been futile, according to Smith and Capt. Phil Tingirides, the commanding officer of the Southeast Division."
I do not believe that this is possible. Given the number of officers, and the number of damaged cars, and the number of undamaged cars, and the log book, most of us could tell you who the culprits are before we get through our first 16oz cup of coffee.
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I used to work at an auto parts store where someone was stealing from the registers. Since we had just hired a guy back after going to jail (presumably for something he didn't do), all eyes were on him. It was a slow night, so my co-worker and I took a look at the shift logs and who worked 1-2 shifts before the money was found missing (because it had safe drops, you couldn't always tell the next shift).
It took us about 20 minutes to find the culprit. It was totally easy. So this is complete BS.
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Better than that I would think - if these devices are being used to continuously monitor the cops for their own and the public protection, then the data is being recorded somewhere. Break the data link and the recording stops (or devolves to static). So, go back and see what the last thing recorded was, that should narrow the list of suspects immensely.
I'm shocked, shocked! (Score:2)
I'm shocked, shocked that the LAPD would try to hide their behavior so they could keep acting like asshats.
Simple Stunned (Score:2)
Not that the LAPD is playing fast and loose with the equipment (okay that this level of poor behavior is being allowed to continue is inconceivable) but, that the equipment isn't self monitoring and reporting. I mean really, they are under the watchful (and apparently sleepy) eye of the DoJ and no one thought to add a monitoring feature? The police have some of the most wired cars around and the tech to push or pull, at least, daily status reports on the health and activity of the recording systems wasn't
Easy solution (Score:4, Insightful)
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A fine proposal - though perhaps some allowance should be made in case the equipment is legitimately damaged in action - at which point the cop is still a cop for the duration of the current action, but all his claims are to be regarded with the same level of suspicion as any other eye-witness.
Combine that with system health self-reporting and you should be good to go. A flashing warning alongside the car's overheat light? An immediate automated warning call from headquarters to their radio? It shouldn't
Dual Standards (Score:2)
Power Corrupts (Score:2)
And Absolute Power is kinda nifty...
It's amazing what happens to some people when they get a taste of power over others. Little wonder why there are cases of extortion and racketeering that happen by police officers in many cities. Once they get a taste, they're hooked, and it escalates.
Why is it that many an off-duty police officer acts like a total a$$-hat, but pops a badge out of their butt when confronted by the proper authority to curb such behavior? They carry on as if they are Allowed to do the thing
Fixed (Score:4, Informative)
It seems to have been fixed:
Instead, warnings went out at roll-call meetings throughout South Bureau, and new rules were put in place requiring officers to document that both antennas were in place at the beginning and end of each shift. To guard against officers removing the antennas during their shifts, Tingirides said he requires patrol supervisors to make unannounced checks on cars.
"We took the situation very seriously. But because the chances of determining who was responsible was so low we elected to move on," Smith said, adding that it cost the department about $1,500 to replace all the antennas.
Since the new protocols went into place, only one antenna has been found missing, Smith said.
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NPR mentioned this morning that one officer has been disciplined since the new policy went in to effect. I assume it's the same one. They did not say how, and likely didn't know (and couldn't find out, as California has pretty strict privacy rights for employees being disciplined), but I seriously doubt it was more than a slap on the wrist for the first time. I suspect it was also made clear to the officer, and everyone else, that future offenses would have escalating consequences. Because, you see, this em
Note to self... (Score:4, Insightful)
...do not rely on monitoring system that treats a complete lack of information as a complete absence of incidents.
Golden Menus (Score:2)
Opportunity For Agreement (Score:2, Insightful)
These law enforcement officers are experiencing the same thing we have been in the wake of the NSA documents. Being watched all the time is wrong even if you are doing nothing wrong.
Anti-authoritarians think people should not be watched all the time, even though it would mean catching a few extra criminals. Law and order advocates think police should not be watched all the time, even though it would mean catching a few extra officers who abuse their position. If we believe that people intrinsically want to
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There are two requirements driving the need for monitoring systems. One is to catch the occasional 'bad cop'. True, most officers are contentious and try to behave ethically. But this is the major drive behind most of these systems. The other requirement is evidence collection. In spite of whatever our law enforcement and judiciary systems claim, police officers make mistakes. Or they are in a hurry or pumped up on adrenalin and their observational powers are hindered. Having a camera/mic running provides a
What about a technological solution? (Score:2)
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Who will watch the watchers? It's clear that "nobody" is the answer the watchers would prefer...
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Who will watch the watchers?
In theory, that is the job of the free press.
Re:Nobody should be constantly monitored (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody should be constantly monitored. Be that at work or in private.
That's pretty obvious to anyone who doesn't live in a totalitarian state or the US.
Society allows police officers to use violence against members of society. They are supposed to only use that privilege under certain circumstances, but many officers have already demonstrated poor judgement and used violence when they should not of used it. The point of these cameras is to provide a control against people who can legally assault the public (police officers) as well as give officers a defense if they are ever accused of using violence inappropriately. This monitoring is necessary because police have already shown themselves to be irresponsible. Any police officer that is intentionally interfering with the recordings should be charged with destruction of evidence.
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It's potentially helpful to correct people gently. Far less so to try to call them out on a mistake. And how exactly is anyone supposed to expand their vocabulary if they limit themselves to only the words and phrases they've already completely mastered? That's not how language works. Hell, that's not how learning pretty much *anything* works.
Language is learned through its use, misuse, and subsequent correction, starting with mimicking single-syllable sounds shortly after birth. As for not writing thi
Re:Nobody should be constantly monitored (Score:4)
Pedantry is alive and well, it seems. I understood him just fine. Perhaps you should of not been so pedantic.
Well done sir! [sounds of applause]
Re:Nobody should be constantly monitored (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm pretty sure that people who work in retail are basically on camera all the time, certainly when they in the public areas of the store. In private, of course they should not be monitored. Unless, perhaps, you count ankle monitors that some convicted felons wear as an alternative to being in prison.
If you were in England, you would be on some of the estimated 6 million surveillance cameras: 70,000 operated by the police, 300,000+ by schools, 13,000 by the London Tube, etc., and most of the rest private individuals and corporations.
Given the track record of police abuses in the U.S., and the dramatic [fall in complaints about police behaviour](http://www.policefoundation.org/content/body-worn-cameras-police-use-force), plus the usefulness of having on-the-spot video evidence against criminals, I would support mandatory cameras for all of them.
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And here is one of the reponses to that monitoring [imdb.com].
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Tell that to someone who works in a casino, or a bank. Sometimes the cameras are there to protect the employee, sometimes the employer, sometimes both.
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LAPD is notorious for corruption and officer abuse. What is *your* plan to fix that?
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Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
I'll bet whoever came up with that was one malicious motherfucker.
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Maybe the first time, or the second. But when there's a pattern of obvious and blatant refusal of compliance, suspicion should certainly direct one's course of action. How else to find the truth?
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Pretty much every retail employee on the planet already has to deal with this, but without the ability to have a mysterious hardware failure at (in)convenient times.
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Pretty much every retail employee on the planet already has to deal with this, but without the ability to have a mysterious hardware failure at (in)convenient times.
This. There are cameras in my office, if I went around cutting the wires to each camera I would no longer have a job and would probably be brought up on criminal charges. Our security department also has the ability to monitor my computer at any time. People in tons of different professions are monitored while they are working and many are tested to determine if they are doing company-prohibited activities while not at work. There is no reason why police should be excluded from the same kind of surveill
Re:How would you like it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing about my day job provides for use of force, arrest, and charging people with criminal acts which could lead to their incarceration.
Given the history of abuses from the LAPD (and lots of other PDs) ... the stakes are much higher, and we've passed the point where we can just assume all police are honest.
So, you'll forgive me if I don't go all "boo hoo" about the level of tracking being applied to them. We see plenty enough stories which indicate cops can often have very little regard (or understanding) of the law.
Quite frankly, I don't believe there's enough tracking of police officers.
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I neither agree nor disagree with your point because there is an unclear factor to me -- nature of work. The nature of police work in this case is similar to a field work (outside the office) which is very difficult to have a good quality control system. Of course, you would need to give a lee way and at the same time has a certain trust level to these people. For an office work, it is a lot different because the employer would have more control on quality check. So the monitoring may or may not be a bad qu
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Meh, methinks maybe more m's might be made mandatory, mostly managing mellifluous meter and mode. ;-)