Lefties have been demanding police wear body cameras for years, believing the public would finally see all the wanton acts of violence perpetrated by cops against peaceful, law-abiding members of society. Then they saw the truth.
New York Attorney General Letitia James has wanted body cams since the death of Eric Garner, back in 2014 when she was public advocate of New York. She even suggested body cameras were a good idea for cops and would save the city of New York money.
“If we were to do, to implement body cameras on 15 percent of our police force in New York City, it would only cost taxpayers $5 million. Currently, we are paying out $152 million annually to claims, individuals who are charging police officers with police misconduct,” she said at a press conference in her office.
A year later, after the death of Walter Scott in South Carolina, she told us why she REALLY wanted the police to wear body cams,
“The video from South Carolina released last night demonstrates the crucial importance of body cameras for police encounters. Had a concerned citizen not taken the initiative to record the shooting, this tragedy and injustice would have gone unknown,” Ms. James said in a statement to the Observer. “Incidents of recorded police brutality are reaching a critical mass nationwide, and they underscore the urgent need for police reform, transparency, and accountability measures—including body cameras, improved police-community relations, and innovative technology in police departments. We must expand the use of body cameras in New York City and in police departments across the nation.”
Mega-lefty New York Mayor Bill de Blasio chased federal funding for police body cams in 2014 when then-president Obama offered $263 million dollars for police body cams.
In 2015, Bill DeBlasio, at Al Sharpton’s National Action Network Convention said, “A few years ago, body cameras were considered something out of reach. But now they’re becoming a norm in more and more police departments around the country. It’s because people demanded change. And technology gave us a chance to create a kind of transparency and accountability we had never known before,” De Blasio said. “We’ve seen these painful moments captured on individual citizens’ cellphone cameras. We are going to move more and more to a society where the cameras on police officers – for the good of all, so the truth comes out.”
But the truth can be painful, especially when reality doesn’t jibe with the left-wing narrative. USA Today moaned that “Bodycams haven’t lived up to promises of exposing police misconduct,” largely because cops decide what will and will not be shown to the public. They whined that police videos of heroic cops get released ASAP but videos involving police shootings can take years before anyone sees them. Odd considering we all saw the body cam videos involving the shootings of Daunte Wright and Adam Toledo, both within days of the incidents.
The truth is simple, most cops aren’t beating minorities for fun. How do we know? The Washington D.C. Metro Police Dept. conducted an exhaustive study on body cams and “police brutality,” and found, “Our experiment suggests that we should recalibrate our expectations of BWCs, (body-worn cameras). Law enforcement agencies (particularly in contexts similar to Washington, DC) that are considering adopting BWCs should not expect dramatic reductions in documented uses of force or complaints, or other large-scale shifts in police behavior, solely from the deployment of this technology.”
Body cams have shown an inconvenient truth: #ACAB — all cop aren’t bastards. Leftists are actually disappointed that body cameras show police officers are NOT oppressing people of color. What we HAVE seen is heroic police work while officers deal with horrific criminal behavior.
Police reality shows have long shown the truth, and have paid the price. A&E canceled their highly-rated Live PD, which followed cops on patrol from 9 pm to midnight, after they filmed a black man resisting arrest, getting tasered 4 times, and dying. Cops and Body Cam were also suspended for showing the truth of criminal behavior.
“Crime shows like Cops have a huge influence over the way the public thinks about criminal justice and by misrepresenting this system, these shows turn people against overdue reform efforts,” the civil rights advocacy group Color of Change tweeted after the cancellation announcement.
Maybe the criminals are in need of “overdue reform.”
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