If you make a more reasonable assumption of 6 of 9 and a 50% working rate (still ridiculous, even for the extraordinarily sad PG County), the odds of none of the working cameras being present are about 1 in 64 (1.6%).

“This case also reinforces the need for departments to begin experimenting with “body cameras.” The technology is there. Now is the time to start using it.”

Even good ol’ Taser makes one:
http://www.taser.com/products/law/Pages/TASERAXON.aspx

This is the sales video of the product:
http://www.taser.com/Pages/VideoDetails.aspx?videoid=77
please play it, the beginning of it cracked me up ….

YOU CHOSE A CAREER BASED ON HONOR
TO SERVE AND PROTECT
PROTECT: THOSE WITHOUT HONOR
PROTECT: FROM THOSE WHO WILL STEAL, DISTORT, AND LIE
THE TRUTH IS YOUR GREATEST ALLY
DESTROY THE LIE
PROTECT TRUTH …..

“I’m pretty sure that tampering with a camera in a patrol car is already a felony. Around here we’d call it obstruction of justice.”

Yeah, for us citizen nothings but if the chosen ones tamper with evidence or obstruct justice, isn’t that just considered “a training issue”?

“I wonder how hard it’d be to manipulate the images in the squad car camera?”

I’m quite sure you already know the answer to that one Marty – LEO’s just cut out the parts they don’t want us to see and offer up the butchered remainder with a straight face.

This is exactly why I do not feel sorry for BART Officer Mesherle – if it weren’t for all those cell phone recordings that escaped being illegally confiscated, we would not know how that young man was really slaughtered. Period.

Another transparent example of law enforcement corruption.

That said, even if there is an innocent explanation, I see little or no reason not to clobber the Government in question over how suspicious it looks.

That has to be the only logical conclusion.

Lying morons. Take your pick.

ANSWER: 2 to the ninth power or one chance in 512.

This assumes the failures are independent events. It’s more likely that, given a single failure, there will be others, i.e., that equipment failure is likely systemic. Of course, this is not to say that I believe for a moment that there were equipment failures and that they aren’t lying to cover up evidence.

Are PG police dumb or dishonest?

False dichotomy. The two descriptors are not mutually exclusive.

#5 | Marty | January 18th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
just like when the goofball says, ‘My dog ate my homework,’ all the people in the classroom roll their eyes. Everyone knows it’s stupid, but it’s a lot of work trying to prove the obvious lie and this kid is very stubborn and he isn’t very bright… Hell, he probably shot his own dog!

The police dog ate the cameras.

Unfortunately, the dog was shot during a no-knock raid on the handler’s house….

all too often, if a member of the public takes video of an incident involving someone from law enforcement, the cops immediately cast doubt on the images- they could’ve been manipulated, made up, etc. I wonder how hard it’d be to manipulate the images in the squad car camera?

great point- equipment used by police/fire/ems is under a real high stress level and frequently breaks down because of poor design/training. plus, there are countless examples of cops/firemen/other govt workers going into private sector to sell equipment to govt agencies. they already have a personal relationship with many of the buyers, so they’ll buy the new stuff and try to integrate the old with the new. even if all the equipment is top notch, there’s a good chance it’s not well-integrated.

the problem with bullet proof documentation that people want with the cameras is that cops’ll find a way to document around the camera. Mitigating factors will be ‘out of range of the camera’. I think a better answer is to reduce the bullshit laws/reasons for official interactions between LEOs and the public. Let these guys be peace officers. Cameras are part of the solution, but they don’t address the fundamental issue.

Which sounded like crazy talk to me, but then I thought wait, don’t cops have extra powers even when off-duty? That should be the rule: more power than any other citizen, fewer “rights” than any other citizen.

Suppose that PG police are dumb. (How dumb are they?) They’re so dumb, they can only keep dash cams operating 50% of the time. What are the chances of an event where nine squad cars equiped with dash cams show up at an event and all nine camera’s “don’t work”? ANSWER: 2 to the ninth power or one chance in 512. If PG police are smart enough to keep the dash cam failure rate down to 33%, then the chances of nine failures is, well, kinda remote. So which is it? Are PG police dumb or dishonest?

That being said, I’m to the point where cops should have cameras surgically installed and operating 24/7, even off shift and on vacation. Too many opportunities for abuse, and they should be under a microscope at all times.