In the wake of a grand jury's decision not to indict Daniel Pantaleo, the New York City police officer who killed Eric Garner, there's been a lot of talk about how the case for requiring police to wear body cameras had been damaged. There was video of Garner's killing, after all, but it still didn't lead to an indictment. While that's appalling and itself an indictment of our system of policing and prosecution, it misses a big part of the case for body cameras.
The video in this case didn't come from a police body camera. It came from a bystander. There's a big difference between knowing at all times that your actions are being recorded and being aware that at some times, bystanders might record what you're doing. Between knowing that the recording from your body camera is always available to hold up against police procedure and your account of events and wondering if maybe a bystander will make their video of your actions public. That's likely why:
The preliminary evidence is promising, if still incomplete. One study in Rialto, Calif. found that officers who did not wear body cameras were twice as likely to use force as those who were. Initial results from another study in Mesa, Ariz., suggest that 65 percent fewer complaints were filed against officers who wore cameras.
Making police aware that they could be held accountable for their actions at any time, not just as a fluke, is a key to changing policing, and body cameras are a key part of that. The next step is that the system has to be set up to actually hold police accountable: for prosecutors to be willing to make a genuine effort to indict police officers when they kill unarmed people. For grand juries that see video of a man being killed to be willing to indict, even if the message they're getting from the prosecutor is "don't bother." In short, the system should be set up to take seriously as a problem with the system itself the fact that police kill young black men and boys at
21 times the rate they kill young white men and boys. Body cameras for sure aren't the one and only complete answer, but they're a part.