Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
Speaker 1: There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there. So
Speaker 1: this is stuff you should know, like ever expanding law
Speaker 1: Enforcement edition yet another Yeah we just did when didn't we?
Speaker 1: Yeah we uh yeah, I can't remember which one it was.
Speaker 1: They'll run together now. Yeah, Well we've done a lot yep.
Speaker 1: Body cameras. Uh, and I kind of want to pick
Speaker 1: this one out. Thought, well, I don't know if there's
Speaker 1: a whole lot there, but it ended up being a
Speaker 1: little more interesting than I thought to be. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a lot there, at least culturally too. Totally. So, um,
Speaker 1: we're talking body cameras, and they're pretty straightforward at their base. Um,
Speaker 1: but once you kind of start looking at like the
Speaker 1: cultural baggage associated with them, why they're being used, it
Speaker 1: is a pretty mushrooming topic for sure. And apparently back
Speaker 1: in two thou five the Brits started using them and
Speaker 1: they ran some Yeah, because I mean, like the city
Speaker 1: of London, I don't think there's a square inch that
Speaker 1: isn't under surveillance, you know. Yeah, they're just pretty uh technologically,
Speaker 1: um forward, I think sure, Like the first cell phone
Speaker 1: I ever saw was in London. Really yeah, obviously of
Speaker 1: like Japan and Korea for that kind of stuff. Well
Speaker 1: maybe there too, but I didn't go to either one
Speaker 1: of those places in the early nineties, I got you,
Speaker 1: So you're like, London's in your head for that. So
Speaker 1: um with with I guess the UK in particular, once
Speaker 1: they started using body cameras, they started using them more
Speaker 1: and more and more. And that's definitely the case with
Speaker 1: the United States more recently. Um And apparently there's a
Speaker 1: there's a pilot program that really started the whole thing
Speaker 1: off back in two thousand and twelve in a little
Speaker 1: town called Rialto, California, which is about fifty miles east
Speaker 1: of Los Angeles. Yeah, and in Rialto, I'm not sure
Speaker 1: what the impetus was, but the police chief and a
Speaker 1: criminologist got together and said, let's let's try this. They
Speaker 1: gave half of the police force body cameras to wear,
Speaker 1: and then switched and gave the other half I guess
Speaker 1: the second half of the year, throughout all of two
Speaker 1: thousand twelve, Yeah, and what they were mainly tracking were
Speaker 1: two different things. Uh, incidences police force and then civilian
Speaker 1: complaints against officers. UM, generally after use the police force,
Speaker 1: but just complaints period. Yeah, basically, and the results are
Speaker 1: pretty surprising. I think. Yeah, they the officers who wore
Speaker 1: the cameras used force half as often just generally would
Speaker 1: use I get well, not less force. That's a little misleading.
Speaker 1: They would use force less of the of the time. Um.
Speaker 1: And then the complaints filed, they said they couldn't really Um,
Speaker 1: there were so few complaints that couldn't really draw a
Speaker 1: good statistical conclusion. But there was a nine reduction compared
Speaker 1: with two thousand eleven of complaints. And they found out
Speaker 1: other stuff too. I looked into the study. UM, and
Speaker 1: this is just the commentary from the research team. These
Speaker 1: aren't like facts and figures. But you know, you do
Speaker 1: a study like this and then they analyze it, then
Speaker 1: they say, well, this is what I think. Um. They
Speaker 1: say that their research shows that people tend to adhere
Speaker 1: to social norms and change your conduct once they're aware
Speaker 1: that their behavior is being observed. Um. And the body
Speaker 1: worn cameras can bey a straightforward, pragmatic message. You were
Speaker 1: being watched a videotape and expected to follow the rules.
Speaker 1: And apparently this uh, what they call a self awareness
Speaker 1: effect is a neutral third eye that works on both sides.
Speaker 1: They said it suspect tend to cool down their aggressive
Speaker 1: actions more and it deters officers from reacting excessively or
Speaker 1: unnecessarily with force. So it kind of works both ways.
Speaker 1: And uh, the final thing I thought was really interesting
Speaker 1: was had what they called a spillover effect, which was
Speaker 1: even officers that weren't using the cameras because they did,
Speaker 1: like you said, with half the force at a time,
Speaker 1: they had fewer incidences of force used. And they speculate
Speaker 1: that they just think there's a conscious effort than going
Speaker 1: on to make uh, to improve their behavior, so that
Speaker 1: the the officers that had the cameras being watched didn't
Speaker 1: like have an advantage or a disadvantage, Like they sort
Speaker 1: of normalize the whole thing, even if they weren't wearing
Speaker 1: a camera at all. Yeah, I mean it's a speculation,
Speaker 1: but it sort of makes sense. Well, so this the
Speaker 1: rialto study is really um often I died because it
Speaker 1: was the first of its kind in the United States
Speaker 1: and because the results were so surprising, and then so
Speaker 1: we also the city immediately was like, Okay, all officers
Speaker 1: now have body cameras. After the results came in, and
Speaker 1: it just so happened that this took place. The study
Speaker 1: took place um right before a couple of very high
Speaker 1: profile police involved deaths, Eric Garner UM and then Michael Brown.
Speaker 1: And Michael Brown's death in particular raised the issue of
Speaker 1: body warren cameras, which is in the general term for
Speaker 1: the cameras police are wearing UM. Because Darren Wilson, who
Speaker 1: shot Michael Brown, the police officer who shot him six
Speaker 1: times UM what gave one account of the story and
Speaker 1: witnesses gave another account of the story. And so when
Speaker 1: Michael Brown's death kind of became part of a national conversation,
Speaker 1: and especially with Eric Garner's death to which immediately proceeded
Speaker 1: I think like a month before, back in two thousand fourteen, UM.
Speaker 1: Eric Garner's death was full on video taped by a
Speaker 1: guy who was standing there recording it on a cell phone,
Speaker 1: and it got out and it was released to the public,
Speaker 1: and it started this national conversation about police brutality UM
Speaker 1: and but it also had this other real aspect to
Speaker 1: it that this conversation might not be happening were it
Speaker 1: not for video documentation of these of Eric Garner's death.
Speaker 1: So the fact that this is happening at a time
Speaker 1: right after rialto has had this study, people are looking
Speaker 1: around saying this. There's entire swaths these communities, UM have
Speaker 1: had this what was called a simmering distrust of the police,
Speaker 1: and they've had it forever. But now all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the rest of the nation's paying attention to this very
Speaker 1: important issue. UM and this, these body cameras work so
Speaker 1: well for this little town in east of Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: maybe we should start to institute those. And all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, the Department of Justice starts showing out forty
Speaker 1: three million dollars in grants for local law enforcement to
Speaker 1: buy body cameras. And there was this this idea that good,
Speaker 1: the problem solved. But to a lot of people, and
Speaker 1: at least impart myself included, it kind of seems like
Speaker 1: this could just be a bandied Does it actually solve
Speaker 1: anything or does it actually just underscore the distrust on
Speaker 1: both sides, Like I don't trust that you're not gonna
Speaker 1: file a false report about me being brutal on you,
Speaker 1: so I'm recording you and I have to wear this
Speaker 1: because the federal government knows that you don't trust me,
Speaker 1: and I might beat you up extra judiciously. So if
Speaker 1: if neither side trusts one another and you just have
Speaker 1: a video camera observing the whole thing, does that actually
Speaker 1: solve anything or does it just underscore the trust. That's
Speaker 1: that's probably the biggest question to me that came out
Speaker 1: of researching this episode. Yeah, I think for me, it's
Speaker 1: it's not a magic pill by any means, but it's
Speaker 1: another tool that can help. But but what I think
Speaker 1: that then the issue to me then is you can't
Speaker 1: just overly rely on that one tool. I think it
Speaker 1: kind of has a tendency to lull people into complacency, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we've got this tool out there now, we don't have
Speaker 1: to worry about the actual underlying issues. Yeah, and we'll
Speaker 1: get into I mean, there's a bunch of reasons why
Speaker 1: it's not a magic pill. We'll get into all those later.
Speaker 1: But um, as of right now, it was hard to
Speaker 1: get statistics, but I got one from about a year
Speaker 1: ago that said forty three of the sixty eight major
Speaker 1: cities now, have you know that what they call the
Speaker 1: major police forces in the US now use body cameras. However,
Speaker 1: U say that they will begin to use them, and
Speaker 1: are you know, taking steps to do so. Um. But
Speaker 1: however they here and this is one of the issues
Speaker 1: of why it's not a magic pill. Um. Only three
Speaker 1: percent of these and this is a survey, only three
Speaker 1: percent of the officers reported recording seven plus hours per day.
Speaker 1: And that's in a in a typical I think, what
Speaker 1: do they work generally twelve hours at a time? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I might, I understand. So only three percent recording seven
Speaker 1: of those hours recorded? Uh, less than recorded three or
Speaker 1: fewer hours per day. UM. So that's one of the
Speaker 1: big issues is some departments, well, I mean, and it
Speaker 1: varies from department in locality to locality on what the
Speaker 1: rules are. Some of them say, all right, well, here's
Speaker 1: your body camera, but you don't have to use it. Um.
Speaker 1: Some of them say use it during any um, confrontation
Speaker 1: with a citizen, any call you have to make. Some say, well,
Speaker 1: you gotta turn them off when you go into a
Speaker 1: private residence because, as we'll talk about a little later,
Speaker 1: the a c l U. You know, it's a privacy
Speaker 1: issue when you're filming people without their consent. That could
Speaker 1: potentially be released, but surprisingly a little bit the a
Speaker 1: c l U eventually kind of said, no, we will.
Speaker 1: We would rather have the officers where these even though
Speaker 1: it's a privacy issue for citizens. It's a tricky, tricky thing.
Speaker 1: Oh man, it is a can of worms like no other. Um.
Speaker 1: But we I mean, I think everyone knows what these are.
Speaker 1: We haven't even said yet. These are cameras that police
Speaker 1: officers wear on their body. Um. The ones I've mostly seen,
Speaker 1: they were sort of on their chest, yeah, like where
Speaker 1: there CB used to be. Yeah. Some of them though,
Speaker 1: are on the shoulder, on the helmet, um or on
Speaker 1: the collar. But mostly I've seen the one that it
Speaker 1: kind of actually looks like a little C, B H
Speaker 1: whatever you call it. Not a CB handle because that's
Speaker 1: rubber Ducky in the in the truck. What you know,
Speaker 1: the CB handle is what your name is. And rubber
Speaker 1: Ducky was from Convoy. I think when was it? I
Speaker 1: think so the movie or the song the movie, well
Speaker 1: the songs from them, Oh man, those guys are great.
Speaker 1: So what the receiver? But you're talking to it the mouthpiece? Okay,
Speaker 1: I just call it the walkie talkie part. The walkie
Speaker 1: talkie part anyway, it's generally mounted on the chest and uh,
Speaker 1: there are many manufacturers that make these now, um, some
Speaker 1: of them or wire wireless. Some of them have high death,
Speaker 1: some of them have one touch activation and ultra wide angle.
Speaker 1: Because that's one of the issues why it's not a
Speaker 1: magic pill. Like the view that they get if it's
Speaker 1: not a wide angle, is a chest high view of
Speaker 1: whatever the officer's body is pointed at, not necessarily what
Speaker 1: their faces looking at, where their eyes are looking. Um,
Speaker 1: it's it's okay, but you know it's not. It's not
Speaker 1: solve for everything in all issues. No, it's not, because
Speaker 1: we'll get into later. You know, if if something happens
Speaker 1: off camera that hasn't captured, like a suspect reaching for
Speaker 1: a gun and but on camera, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the cops just standing there and then the next thing
Speaker 1: you know, he pulls his gun out and shoots the guy,
Speaker 1: it's like, well that that cop just went berserk because
Speaker 1: the camera didn't capture that thing. Most of them have
Speaker 1: a time and date stamp. Some of them have the
Speaker 1: badge number of the cop. Some of them have GPS coordinates.
Speaker 1: Some of them take still photos some stream to remote devices.
Speaker 1: Very few of them can you actually is it like
Speaker 1: a iPhone where you can as a screen that you
Speaker 1: can watch it, But some of them can hook up
Speaker 1: to an app to your phone where you can watch it. Yeah, advanced.
Speaker 1: I read this article about the one that Taser's putting out.
Speaker 1: It was largely about that was by It was a
Speaker 1: Motherboard article by Alex Pasternak, and he um talks about
Speaker 1: how one of the big concerns is in the addition
Speaker 1: of facial recognition, like computer facial recognition, because supposedly, I
Speaker 1: didn't know this, half of Americans have their face in
Speaker 1: a facial recognition database already. So if you're just somebody
Speaker 1: walking past one of these cameras and it has facial
Speaker 1: recognition attached to it, it will say, oh, well there
Speaker 1: when Josh Clark, he was here on this date at
Speaker 1: this time and he's wanted for murder, right, Well, that
Speaker 1: was part of the point. It's like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: the camera can pick it up and then the database can,
Speaker 1: let you know, go get that guy he's wanted for murder. Um.
Speaker 1: But also, if you're as a private citizen, as you're
Speaker 1: the you're right against unlawful search and seizure being UM
Speaker 1: violated by that kind of thing, and apparently that is
Speaker 1: definitely a direction that that UM these cameras are starting
Speaker 1: to go now, like facial recognition will soon be the
Speaker 1: next step as they're deployed further and further, it's going
Speaker 1: to be like a common UM feature on them. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Another feature that uh, most of these cameras have now,
Speaker 1: and this is a very interesting one because it's kind
Speaker 1: of played out recently to be significant, is a buffering
Speaker 1: pre record. So if this cameras on, it's recording, but
Speaker 1: it records in thirty second or sixty second intervals with
Speaker 1: no audio most of the time. So what's happening is
Speaker 1: even if the cop has not pressed record, it's recording
Speaker 1: and a racing over itself constantly, um if it's turned on.
Speaker 1: So what happens when the cop hits record is it's
Speaker 1: gonna have that thirty or sixty seconds tagged onto it
Speaker 1: and that gets saved, which can be a big asset
Speaker 1: if the cop. Uh you know a lot of times
Speaker 1: a cop will see something and turn it on, but
Speaker 1: they have just missed what's happened, but it'll grab that
Speaker 1: thirty seconds, which can be a big help, or in
Speaker 1: the case of Baltimore, it can bust a cop planning evidence. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw that too, So that to me was more
Speaker 1: like interpretation of video. What is your what was your
Speaker 1: take on it? Well, no, there were two of them.
Speaker 1: The most recent one was interpretation of video. I think
Speaker 1: there was one previous to that where it actually caught
Speaker 1: the cop planning evidence because he didn't know that the
Speaker 1: thirty second buffer was happening. Oh really, I didn't see
Speaker 1: that one. Uh. And then that may have been I'm
Speaker 1: not sure in this case, but sometimes it's uploaded to
Speaker 1: a cloud and it's there right. The second one I
Speaker 1: think was what it looks like is that the cops
Speaker 1: took a made a concerted effort to organize and deploy
Speaker 1: their cameras at specific times to get away with planning evidence.
Speaker 1: So that's the speculation. This is all very brand new
Speaker 1: in the news. But you know, their cops saying like,
Speaker 1: do you have yours on? You're not supposed to have
Speaker 1: yours on yet, saying things like that, and of course
Speaker 1: the a c, L, EU and and the prosecutors are
Speaker 1: saying this is clearly the cops trying to coordinate this
Speaker 1: thing with their cameras staging with reality. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: something that is going to start happening more and more.
Speaker 1: I mean, ideally all all cops are doing really good work, uh,
Speaker 1: and you don't have to worry about that. But you know,
Speaker 1: there's been plenty of cases over the years of bad
Speaker 1: cops doing bad things, and now these body cameras, they're
Speaker 1: gonna have to find a way to get around it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I want to can I just say something real quick? So,
Speaker 1: so the the whole issue to me is this, right, Like, um,
Speaker 1: I think I've probably come off as distrustful of cops
Speaker 1: sometimes and to me, um, so, as society, we give
Speaker 1: cops like a tremendous amount of power over us, right,
Speaker 1: and we give it to them in exchange for them up,
Speaker 1: you know, upholding the law and protecting us right. Right.
Speaker 1: But the problem is is if that trust is broken,
Speaker 1: then that's a huge issue because as you go suddenly
Speaker 1: from because you can't do anything about it, and you
Speaker 1: go from being a protected citizen to being a hostage
Speaker 1: of the state. Right. So that means to me that
Speaker 1: police have to be like above reproach, that they they
Speaker 1: have to be as angelic as possible right, and that
Speaker 1: if they're there, um, if they're that, if they're called
Speaker 1: into question for something, there shouldn't even be the slightest
Speaker 1: hint that they're being protected or it's being covered up
Speaker 1: or anything like that, and government needs to step in
Speaker 1: and do something about it. And that has not been
Speaker 1: the case. Government has broken down in its role of
Speaker 1: overseeing police when the question of trust is brought up,
Speaker 1: and what you're left with then is a citizenry that
Speaker 1: it says I don't trust the cops any longer, and
Speaker 1: just as bad as that, I don't trust the governments
Speaker 1: to root out back cops. Um when the trust is broken,
Speaker 1: but the power structure is still there. That doesn't exactly exactly,
Speaker 1: So we're all hostages now to the cops. That's it's
Speaker 1: clearer than ever. Now. That's that's my problem. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that that is necessarily the case, or that even
Speaker 1: if it is the case, it's the case across the board.
Speaker 1: I think there are plenty of plenty and plenty of
Speaker 1: good cops out there who really do hold themselves to
Speaker 1: a very high stenator. But the fact is there are
Speaker 1: bad cops out there too, And I don't believe that
Speaker 1: bad cops are rooted out and prosecuted like they should be,
Speaker 1: and that the trust between the citizens and the police
Speaker 1: has eroded as a result, and the government has totally
Speaker 1: dropped the ball in in repairing that. Yeah, and especially
Speaker 1: tough too when like every uh, every bad cop documentary
Speaker 1: you've ever seen of them, the first thing you hear
Speaker 1: cops saying as well, the first rule is you gotta
Speaker 1: cover for your buddy cops. Like, even if you don't
Speaker 1: agree with them, you don't ride out a cop. And
Speaker 1: so then you're like, I think cops also subscribe almost
Speaker 1: across the board to what's right is right though, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, and that they do kind of
Speaker 1: tend to to to go toward that. I like to
Speaker 1: think that I want to think that. Um, and I
Speaker 1: hope I'm not being naive and thinking that you wanna
Speaker 1: take a break. Yeah, all right, let's do it. We'll
Speaker 1: talk a little more about body cameras. All right, we're
Speaker 1: back with a little more of the mundane, which is
Speaker 1: the cost of these things. Uh. They can go up
Speaker 1: to about nine bucks or as low as the low hundreds. UM,
Speaker 1: let's such just say an average of four bucks for
Speaker 1: a system. UM, and if you have a large police
Speaker 1: force of six cops, that's a lot of dough, Um
Speaker 1: it is. But Uncle Sam is offsetting a lot of that. Yeah. Sure,
Speaker 1: And and I think everyone is in favor of these
Speaker 1: And I think our article points out in a very
Speaker 1: astute way, like ideally these things can provide clarity, but
Speaker 1: at the very least it's just another measure in place
Speaker 1: to help protect citizens and police. Yes, but there's a
Speaker 1: group who say, no, these are kind of a bad idea.
Speaker 1: And I find it's suspicious that the government is um
Speaker 1: supporting this so so wholeheartedly, that it's just um advancing
Speaker 1: the surveillance state that much more normalizing the idea of
Speaker 1: people being recorded everywhere they go all the time, even
Speaker 1: in interacting with other people. Yeah, so I think there
Speaker 1: are some people who just don't even like the idea
Speaker 1: of of body war and cameras at all. Well, citizens
Speaker 1: and cops probably, right, Um, So another big problem or not, Well,
Speaker 1: I guess it is sort of a problem or challenge
Speaker 1: at least, is is how to store this information, um,
Speaker 1: depending on where you are, Like they use Oakland as
Speaker 1: a as an example in this article. Six hundred cops,
Speaker 1: six hundred body cameras generates about seven terabytes of video
Speaker 1: every month and UM Storing the stuff is a big
Speaker 1: challenge because depending on where you are, you have a
Speaker 1: lot of rules in place because this is evidence potentially
Speaker 1: and it's you know, you can't just store it anyway
Speaker 1: you like in Oakland they have to keep it for
Speaker 1: two years of anything that's involved in an investigation. It's
Speaker 1: longer than that. Uh. Duluth Minnesota they point out thirty days. Laurel,
Speaker 1: Maryland has six six months. Like that's a lot of data.
Speaker 1: And the security standards are really uh strict, and they
Speaker 1: gotta figure out how to store this stuff, how to
Speaker 1: do it safely. And because people that know how to
Speaker 1: make money are are behind this. There are companies that's
Speaker 1: very smartly are coming up with complete systems that will
Speaker 1: offer a police department and say hey, we got you covered.
Speaker 1: We will take care of your storage, we will comply
Speaker 1: with all your rules and regulations, will train your people
Speaker 1: because you gotta hire in house people just to keep
Speaker 1: track of the data. Uh, and we'll do it all
Speaker 1: for you, exactly like Taser apparently has one heck of
Speaker 1: a system where when the when the UM officer puts
Speaker 1: there embody warrn camera on the dock to charge it
Speaker 1: simultaneously starts uploading um all of the all of the
Speaker 1: day's recording, right, So yeah, and it goes to the
Speaker 1: cloud um and multiple people have access to it. But
Speaker 1: it's any interaction with the video is logged automatically by
Speaker 1: the system. If somebody goes to delete it, like only
Speaker 1: certain people have access to delete file aisles, but again
Speaker 1: multiple people do, and so if somebody goes to delete it,
Speaker 1: they they're the other people who have the ability ability
Speaker 1: to delete it are notified. So it's spreads Yeah, it
Speaker 1: spreads out accountability. So it's like, well, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: I'm going down to for letting you delete it. If so,
Speaker 1: what are you deleting this for kind of thing? Um,
Speaker 1: it's a pretty smart system. Like from what I read
Speaker 1: from Pastor Neck in particular his article, it was like
Speaker 1: Taser's got it going on. But if you if you
Speaker 1: take the software away from it and the you know,
Speaker 1: the LED light attached to it and all that stuff,
Speaker 1: it's really what you have is basically a GoPro camera.
Speaker 1: It's the it's the highly encrypted and protected software that
Speaker 1: goes along with it that really makes it like law
Speaker 1: enforcement specific. Yeah. I think in a lot of these
Speaker 1: places the d A even has access remotely to this footage,
Speaker 1: which is pretty interesting. The thing that that worries me
Speaker 1: a little bit is the the situations where the local
Speaker 1: police department has their own employees who are responsible for
Speaker 1: keeping and maintaining and storing the video. It should be
Speaker 1: it should be larger than that. You know, that's too localized. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean this, it's sort of like it makes me
Speaker 1: think of all the movies I've seen where the the
Speaker 1: evidence locker is guarded by like a dude, and someone
Speaker 1: comes down there and they're like, uh, you know her
Speaker 1: in the movie. It's you know her jacked up my hand, man,
Speaker 1: I can't sign in today. Just let me in. I
Speaker 1: gotta look at look at something for my gaze. And
Speaker 1: then they they're in there, you know, taking a part
Speaker 1: of gun and putting it in their pants to take out.
Speaker 1: What movie was that pounds of cocaine? That's every movie? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's every movie ever made. And yeah, absolutely that Frog's
Speaker 1: movie you're talking about that had it in there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was right. Apparently I added a superfluous exclamation point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's it called? Just frogs, not frogs. It's just frogs?
Speaker 1: Was it? Frogs? Frogs? So um. One of the criticisms
Speaker 1: I've seen though, is it's like, well, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: why why don't you trust us? Surely we can police
Speaker 1: our own video, be trusted to police our own video.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, the very fact that the video exists
Speaker 1: means that you aren't trusted. So no, you shouldn't have
Speaker 1: full jurisdiction over it. Because if this video is meant
Speaker 1: to if it's meant because we don't trust you the citizens,
Speaker 1: and we don't trust you the cops, but you, the
Speaker 1: cops are the ones who are actually in control of
Speaker 1: this video. That's lopsided. That's not a good solution. It's
Speaker 1: not a full solution, I should say, right, because they
Speaker 1: wouldn't turn that over to the citizens. So why don't
Speaker 1: you keep track of this? No, that's a big issue too,
Speaker 1: is who gets to see it? Yeah, well, a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of cities have have law in the
Speaker 1: books where if you like a like a TV station
Speaker 1: can ask for it and they have to give it
Speaker 1: to him. Yeah, through uh, not FOIA, but local state
Speaker 1: um disclosure lass, which is another big can of worms.
Speaker 1: It is because you got to give the other side
Speaker 1: as well too, right, So like if a if a
Speaker 1: police officer dies in the line of duty and their
Speaker 1: body cameras recording it, which happened in Arizona, I did.
Speaker 1: It was his head anxiety the whole time watching it.
Speaker 1: It was an officer named Tyler Stewart. Yeah, very sad.
Speaker 1: It was extremely sad to see he was murdered by
Speaker 1: some guy named Robert Smith who just drew a gun
Speaker 1: after like three minutes of questioning. Yeah, and I didn't.
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but I didn't see that coming.
Speaker 1: I didn't either. It was just like everything's normal, normal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it looks like super shady. Uh. And then of course
Speaker 1: you find out afterwards that like he had been kind
Speaker 1: of plating suicide and he you know, like the reason
Speaker 1: he was there is because he trashed his girlfriend's apartment
Speaker 1: and he had a lot of problems going on. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I was putting myself in the cop shoes,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I would have not suspected anything out
Speaker 1: of this guy. Now, he was disarming, for sure, but
Speaker 1: the but Tyler officer Stewart recorded his own death at
Speaker 1: the hands of this guy and the local media was like, well,
Speaker 1: we want to see it, and apparently Arizona has um
Speaker 1: foil laws that are um that'd say, okay, well the
Speaker 1: media gets it. You have to you have to release that,
Speaker 1: which is apparently pretty rare. But in this case, it's
Speaker 1: like it doesn't. Doesn't the doesn't the family of the
Speaker 1: of the officer have any rights to be spared? This
Speaker 1: being out there on the internet for any anybody who
Speaker 1: wants to see this guy's death, you know, forever? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, of course they cut it, but still, you know,
Speaker 1: like if anyone can look this up on YouTube, that's
Speaker 1: just three I don't know. It's shameful. So the the
Speaker 1: issue cuts both ways, especially privacy, like you do you
Speaker 1: protect the citizen? Since privacy? Do you protect the cops?
Speaker 1: Privacy do you protect no? What? Do you take the
Speaker 1: wiki leaks approach and protect nobody's privacy like it happened?
Speaker 1: Just keep it raw and and and if it's open
Speaker 1: new interpretation, then settle it in court kind of thing,
Speaker 1: you know, who knows? All right, you wanna take another break, man,
Speaker 1: I keep working to send a breakes man. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: you know you're doing great. All right, We'll take another
Speaker 1: break and talk a little bit about how these things
Speaker 1: work and um, why they're not magic pills. Right after this. Okay, Chuck,
Speaker 1: we're back. You know, I'll tell you one thing. I
Speaker 1: looked up Taser's stock. Yeah, if you bought in two
Speaker 1: ells and I think ten, you're doing pretty good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because of their body warn camera program. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: like five dollars and before this, I think they just
Speaker 1: only made like tasers and non lethal weapons. But when
Speaker 1: they got into the body camera market, their stock went
Speaker 1: from like five bucks. I think it peaked at like
Speaker 1: thirty five or forty. Yeah. Not bad, not bad at all.
Speaker 1: Good for them. Yeah, but and again I can't remember
Speaker 1: the name of it, but if you read that as
Speaker 1: Alec pass your nach article, it's it's really sharp system.
Speaker 1: And I own zero stock and Taser, Like, I'm just
Speaker 1: a fan. I'm not a fan even if their non
Speaker 1: lethal weapons, but their their body warrn camera systems is
Speaker 1: pretty smart. It seems like, Yeah, I mean, I'm a
Speaker 1: fan of smart things. Sure, if you're going to design
Speaker 1: a system, it should be full proof and work well
Speaker 1: and story everything you needed to not break down. It
Speaker 1: seems like they got it going on Um. So one
Speaker 1: of the other reasons that uh, like I said earlier,
Speaker 1: this is it's not a magic pill, because you're only
Speaker 1: getting this one. It's not. Our article points out very
Speaker 1: astute lee that it's not an unbiased view. Still, Um,
Speaker 1: if you had six or eight, like if you were
Speaker 1: in London, you had six or eight cameras and different
Speaker 1: angles on different light posts, and you could coordinate this
Speaker 1: thing and fully see everything that happened, it may be unbiased, truly,
Speaker 1: but just a single shot from a body camera sing
Speaker 1: that single angle is not unbiased by any means. And
Speaker 1: that's about it. Did you see the nurse wobbles arrest
Speaker 1: m h The Utah nurse who refused to draw the
Speaker 1: blood of the suspect was unconscious. So if you just
Speaker 1: watched um, the arresting officers Jeff Paine's body camera, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, like because it's up close and personal, it
Speaker 1: goes like suddenly just basically goes dark when it's pressed
Speaker 1: up against her act and it shows like very little
Speaker 1: of anything. It was because of the other officer that
Speaker 1: was with him his body camera. Um, that you get like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, that really was a lot of force, unnecessary
Speaker 1: force that this guy was using on this lady that
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have gotten just from the footage from his
Speaker 1: body camera, and that having supporting video evidence definitely expands
Speaker 1: the the context one way or the other. It's interesting, though,
Speaker 1: we're getting to a point where you're gonna have, um,
Speaker 1: I say, a crime on a on a officer stop
Speaker 1: of a car with a car camera, dashboard camera, let's
Speaker 1: say two officers, body cameras, the people inside the car
Speaker 1: filming with their iPhones, let's say two, So you've got
Speaker 1: five different points of view going on that people courts
Speaker 1: and juries are gonna have to sift through. D a's
Speaker 1: defendants are gonna have to look at all this stuff
Speaker 1: and try and piece together what happened. And this is
Speaker 1: all new like previously you did this from testimony only
Speaker 1: exactly So, like, are we opening ourselves up to a
Speaker 1: time when d A s are are less willing to
Speaker 1: bring up charges unless there is footage? You know? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wonder, but I mean it doesn't sound like there's
Speaker 1: going to be much a lack of it. There's a
Speaker 1: company called um Wolf Com who makes body warrant cameras
Speaker 1: for police, is also releasing one for civilians. It's basically
Speaker 1: the same thing without their police software that like just
Speaker 1: somebody just wears it all times. Yeah, basically to film
Speaker 1: the police while the police are filming them. And they
Speaker 1: say it's perfect for protests, improving legality, and there's like, um,
Speaker 1: there's like a button, the power button or stop or
Speaker 1: the record button has to be pressed a certain way,
Speaker 1: so even if like somebody bumping into your beating you up,
Speaker 1: your camera won't stop recording. It's like, good lord, Like
Speaker 1: the act that this is the climate that that's like
Speaker 1: a selling point is really unsettling and sad, you know.
Speaker 1: It is like, hey, everybody, come get your body warn
Speaker 1: cameras because you need to film the people who are
Speaker 1: filming you, because you can't trust the even this measure
Speaker 1: that's being used to supposedly protect your rights. It's crazy
Speaker 1: that it's crazy that we're in the state in this country.
Speaker 1: That raised another point to me to chuck the idea
Speaker 1: of having all these different points of view or video documentation.
Speaker 1: This is also coming at a time when we are
Speaker 1: starting to see editing software where you can kick video
Speaker 1: and make it do anything. You can make it say anything,
Speaker 1: you can make it, you can do anything with video.
Speaker 1: The moon landing. How is that going to affect you know,
Speaker 1: the use of video and in documentation for court cases
Speaker 1: too well, and we've already seen just with Baltimore, you know,
Speaker 1: what can happen and cops now have to wear these
Speaker 1: and where they're trying to coordinate who's got who's camera on?
Speaker 1: Did you have your camera on? What about that thirty
Speaker 1: second buffer? Um? Geez. It's all just sad that we're
Speaker 1: at that state now to where but you know, it's
Speaker 1: also a good thing that, like, for how many years
Speaker 1: were bad things happening without any uh citizen? Uh? I
Speaker 1: mean there was no recourse, you know, for so long
Speaker 1: and there still isn't to a large degree. This is
Speaker 1: just a little small thing. No, it's true, But I
Speaker 1: mean that has to be a certain level of at
Speaker 1: least gratification among people who have lived with distrust of
Speaker 1: the police or have been abused as a whole by police,
Speaker 1: um for decades that people are now finally starting to
Speaker 1: be like, oh man, this is crazy. You how long
Speaker 1: has this been going on? You know, because there's a
Speaker 1: light being shined on it, um. And so in that sense, yes,
Speaker 1: it's crazy that we're at this state right now. In
Speaker 1: our our country, but you know, maybe it's just a
Speaker 1: growing pain towards moving to a better place. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: know that rialto study too. And their summation, they also
Speaker 1: said something about, um, I can't remember exactly only put it,
Speaker 1: but something about how they found that it They think
Speaker 1: that it also requires police to take to take more
Speaker 1: verbal abuse from people, um, which you know isn't fun,
Speaker 1: but sort of like the days are over where if
Speaker 1: you're smart off to a cop, they can't just throw
Speaker 1: your face on the ground and put their knees through
Speaker 1: your cheekbone because you've smarted off to them. Um, So
Speaker 1: they did. I don't think they weighed in either way
Speaker 1: on what that means. They just said, what, you know,
Speaker 1: it looks like cops are going to have to start
Speaker 1: enduring a little more talk back from the drunk guy
Speaker 1: at the bar without diving right into excessive force because
Speaker 1: they were piste off. Now drunk kind of bar, notwithstandard
Speaker 1: What are the big things that that these body cameras
Speaker 1: are touted for, and I think you said it early on, um,
Speaker 1: is that people behave differently when they know they're being recorded,
Speaker 1: so that officers won't have to take verbal lashings from
Speaker 1: people as often, and so that might that that the
Speaker 1: very presence of the cameras supposedly um can keep situations
Speaker 1: from escalating, or it can actually de escalate a situation.
Speaker 1: Just if if the officers like need you to know
Speaker 1: you're being recorded right now, people supposedly straighten up. I
Speaker 1: don't know if they have to or not. Well, we're
Speaker 1: in such the early nascent days of this, it's um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is sort of an early podcast to see what
Speaker 1: ramifications are gonna happen later on, you know who knows. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I saw was that
Speaker 1: this is a situation. This is a technology that's gotten
Speaker 1: a lot of press, but it's still very early on
Speaker 1: in actual academic study of it, supposedly, and including the
Speaker 1: rialto study. Most studies are not published in journals and
Speaker 1: aren't peer reviewed. They're just you know, studies largely carried
Speaker 1: out by like criminologists or scientists, but also by the
Speaker 1: local police departments carrying the studies out on their own department.
Speaker 1: Right There's supposedly only been two peer reviewed journal studies
Speaker 1: published on body warrant cameras so far, UM, and one
Speaker 1: of them was on the effect of giving an officer
Speaker 1: leeway on wind to press record. How how does that
Speaker 1: impact things like, um, the use of violence and this
Speaker 1: This two thousand and sixteen study in the Journal of
Speaker 1: Experimental Criminology found that, compared to the control group, UM,
Speaker 1: if the officer had very little leeway and deciding wing
Speaker 1: to record, meaning they had to record all the time,
Speaker 1: UM that physical the use of physical violence decreased by
Speaker 1: thirty seven. But in situations where officers had a lot
Speaker 1: of leeway in deciding when to press record or not,
Speaker 1: UM it was higher than the control group. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: this whole win. Is it recording and when is it not?
Speaker 1: Is the seems like the biggest sticking point right now?
Speaker 1: And are we going to move to a future where
Speaker 1: they are absolutely required to record any interaction with a
Speaker 1: citizen or they get suspended or something like who knows
Speaker 1: what we're headed towards. Yeah, Like it's a big deal
Speaker 1: if they're not recording, not like a you know, you
Speaker 1: gotta you're supposed to be recording kind of thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess it from a good cops point of view,
Speaker 1: they should say, like, man, I want to record this
Speaker 1: thing because this is what's gonna exonerate me in this
Speaker 1: atmosphere we have today. Yeah, but I think it right.
Speaker 1: I think cops are also scared that that that footage
Speaker 1: that it could also be in like footage can be
Speaker 1: used against them, even if it doesn't show anything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I think Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it's a it's a man, it's just so fraught as
Speaker 1: a technology to be to be used like this, you know.
Speaker 1: And again the fact that we're using it says, hey,
Speaker 1: you guys don't trust you guys, So we're gonna keep
Speaker 1: these cameras here so everybody be cool. Like that solves anything.
Speaker 1: I wonder when cars are gonna come equipped with built
Speaker 1: in cameras that, you know, record all around the car.
Speaker 1: Let's say, I mean the camera's already there with you
Speaker 1: know a lot of these uh safety features. All that's
Speaker 1: lacking as a record button. Well, the cops have those
Speaker 1: for um, running license plates while they're driving down the street.
Speaker 1: Their cameras are are just looking at license plates over
Speaker 1: the cars they're driving past to to run them. And
Speaker 1: there was one other thing I saw in that um
Speaker 1: fast Co Motherboard pastor Knack article. Um he just kind
Speaker 1: of casually made mention that department stores, how spittles airports,
Speaker 1: they're already using video facial recognition systems. So if you
Speaker 1: walk into like Macy's or something, I don't know this specifically,
Speaker 1: but I'm just picking on Macy's that when you're on camera,
Speaker 1: your face is being run against the database to see
Speaker 1: if you're somebody that they should be worried about, or
Speaker 1: maybe even call the cops about to say that somebody
Speaker 1: that likes neckties. And they may have that too. It
Speaker 1: depends on whether they got their software from Taser or
Speaker 1: from Marcus. Yeah, I did not know that, and that
Speaker 1: that just takes profiling to a higher level. Huh. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: or maybe not if they're getting good information. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's not profiling, is it. It's ultra tailored profiling. If
Speaker 1: someone walks in and they're like, well, this guy committed
Speaker 1: three acts of of shoplifting in the past year, they
Speaker 1: might want to watch him. Is that profiling? No, because
Speaker 1: it's specific to you, not say your race or something
Speaker 1: like so, yeah, it's it's difficult to argue that that
Speaker 1: at that point of it. It's more just like the
Speaker 1: man you know that being surveiled everywhere. So this is
Speaker 1: a good one. Yeah, you got anything else. No, I'm
Speaker 1: interested to see where this goes. Plenty of follow up
Speaker 1: stories over the years. I'm sure ye will happen. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm sure as well. Um, if you want to know
Speaker 1: more about body Warren cameras, police cameras, just look up
Speaker 1: police body cameras. They'll bring up this really good article
Speaker 1: by Julia Layton on how stuff works. Since I said
Speaker 1: that it's time for listener mail, I'm gonna call this, well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call it a very cute email from a
Speaker 1: little kid. Maybe I shouldn't read that one on this one, right,
Speaker 1: He's got a slog through this and be like, this
Speaker 1: is the future I have ahead of me? All right?
Speaker 1: So this was from Noah. He is five years old
Speaker 1: and is Scottish. Um and his mom sort of supplemented
Speaker 1: the email with some little thing here and there, and
Speaker 1: then at the end she said, you know, he really
Speaker 1: I wanted to write into you guys personally, so I
Speaker 1: let him use my email account and otherwise it is
Speaker 1: just his words. And then a PS from mom, Dear
Speaker 1: Josh C h O s H. Very cute. I like
Speaker 1: listening to your podcast. I listened to it in the
Speaker 1: car and before I fall asleep. My favorite facts is
Speaker 1: about an iceberg as big as Jamaica and what to
Speaker 1: do in a tornado, And then mom says in parentheses,
Speaker 1: he reminds me frequently to not go in a tunnel
Speaker 1: during a tornado. We live in Scotland, where there are
Speaker 1: no tornadoes. You're funny and I like learning about disasters
Speaker 1: as long as they're not too scary. And my mama says,
Speaker 1: I'm too little. Can you do an episode about the
Speaker 1: different kinds of bridges and engineers? I listened to that
Speaker 1: one you did, but I'd like another because I'm going
Speaker 1: to be a structural engineer and build bridges. Love Noah parentheses.
Speaker 1: I'm five and I live in Scotland, which is in Europe.
Speaker 1: Thanks thanks for the tip. Noah, Noah, that is great.
Speaker 1: You're wonderful. We appreciate you. The mom adds this, ps,
Speaker 1: I'm afraid there's one in the family who's not a fan.
Speaker 1: Every time Stuff you Should Know comes on in the car,
Speaker 1: my three year old daughter cries, no, not Stuff you
Speaker 1: should Know. I can't sing to that. Oh that's cute,
Speaker 1: and she says, sorry, guys, you can't compete with Disney
Speaker 1: and me personally Uh, Mom, if you can record your
Speaker 1: daughter screaming about how she doesn't like stuff you should know,
Speaker 1: and then record Noah talking about how he does love
Speaker 1: stuff you should know in that lovely Scottish accent, I
Speaker 1: for one would like to hear that. Yeah, same here
Speaker 1: and we'll even play it. Um. Yeah, thanks a lot. No,
Speaker 1: you're the bomb buddy in America. That means you're terrific.
Speaker 1: Uh and thanks to mom too for fostering the email. Yes, wait,
Speaker 1: wait to go? Mom is great. You're all great. If
Speaker 1: you're a cute kid who wants to tell us high,
Speaker 1: we love hearing from you. Um. You can tweet to
Speaker 1: us at josh um Clark or at s y s
Speaker 1: K podcast. You can hang out with Chuck on Facebook
Speaker 1: dot com slash stuff you Should Know or slash Charles W.
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant. You can take the traditional route and send
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