Do Body Cams Skew Perception Portraying Criminals as Underdogs?
Doesn’t everyone have sympathy for the overpowered and outmanned?
Root for the Underdog!
You may not have sympathy for the Washington Generals, but perhaps you should. They travel from city to city in a dilapidated smoke spewing bus held together with duct tape and bailing wire. Meanwhile, their rivals, the Harlem Globetrotters fly from town to town in sleek style receiving first class service at every altitude. The worst part of the deal is that the Generals never win. They go from game-to-game wondering what new humiliation is on the menu.
A False Equivalency
In real life, the police are not playing exhibition games with criminals. The public perceives criminals and police are in a fight. It looks like a fight, as clips shown on the news often begin mid-event, conspicuously absent of pretext. But, only the criminal is in a fight, violently resisting to get away.
The police are not in a fight. They are in the transaction of a lawful custodial arrest.
Movie and television fiction do the profession no favors. In The Dark Knight Rises, there is a scene where hundreds of uniformed officers engage in huge brawl against hundreds of criminals. Too many citizens, and criminals, believe that law enforcement functions at that level. Only a miniscule fraction of a percentage of arrests results in serious injury or death. In fact, “police use force in 0.78% of sampled arrests and fire weapons only 0.03% of the time…”
Arrest is so transactional for most offenders that they accept and understand they were going to be arrested before the cage car pulls up. Those evading arrest confirm by their actions they know why they are being pursued. They just don’t want to go to jail.
Public Perception
In the video of the January 7, 2023, arrest of Tyre Nichols, I was asked ‘why were the officers so angry?’ I hadn’t previously noted that or given it much thought. On subsequent viewings I recognized how friends and family considered that the speech was coarse and profane. They were far more concerned about the language than the actions of the officers and the suspect.
A captain, who, as an officer, worked the more crime-prone areas asked hypothetically how he could interact with suspects, conduct conversations in the vernacular of the streets, while under the constant surveillance of his body camera. We still don’t know. What we do know is engaging at the sometimes-guttural level, (i.e. talking smack) will garner just enough trust and respect to develop a C.I. or get a street level dealer to furnish information on the competition.
The dangerous side of transparency is that public safety procedures considered best practices are anything but common knowledge.
This is true of the public, leaders, and the media. We yearn to expect more from our elected officials. However, the highest office in the land suggests a safety tactic of warning shots on a second-floor balcony by popping off a couple of shotgun rounds from a double barrel shotgun. You don’t need to be a gun expert to do the math. In the same vein, local elected leaders accuse their officers of murder while they are performing lifesaving acts. The gap in knowledge of accepted best practices is obvious. Sadly, there is no interest in bridging that gulf.
When we share videos of any level of force, it presents to the public as an unfair fight. A pursuit on the news where ten or more cruisers are chasing a damaged car will have a predictable outcome, but it still commands attention.
Multiple officers struggling with a single resisting criminal appear to the untrained and inexperienced eye as excessive. Worse, excessive and unfair.
However, to experienced law enforcement professionals, it is proven to be the best way to avoid suspect and officer injuries. The best officers I worked with identified who was going to be a problem before any bad and dangerous ideas had any chance to gather momentum.
The True Pretext
Missing from every narrative where cops and deputies are accused of excessive force or shooting, sometimes killing, a suspect without sufficient cause, is the day to day setting of the officer’s occupation. They gear up and face the day, without having any idea of what the day is going to bring. They activate their body worn camera (BWC) upon dispatch to a call, and when a suspect is present, they take appropriate action based on the suspect’s actions; either their peaceful or violent response.
Relevant Insight
Last week, the author of Police Law Newsletter wrote a great article titled The Price of Order. He describes the absurdity, in the name of justice, where cities settled frivolous lawsuits with rioters:
“Just so everyone is on the same page here - cops hate riots. That is a fact. There is literally no police officer who looks forward to joining their brothers and sisters in blue to defend the city against domestic terrorists.”
His article also sets the stage discussing the insanity on the streets in 2020 where demonstrators became protesters and then transitioned into rioters. City leaders went on record endorsing violence, arson, and other property destruction while putting police officers on the defense to endure the abuse. He also points out the key fact: not a single demonstration, protest or riot was initiated by the officers who were sent to endure the hatred, harassment, and extreme physical violence of the mobs.
The Common Thread
In both situations, there is an implication of a duality where none exists. Media reports and other feedback (including fireworks, rocks, deadly missiles, and hand-to-hand attacks) from rioters, as well as the feckless souls who share their opinions on a a keyboard from an anonymous perch, demonstrate that that the profession continues to allow corrupt ideas to kneecap the truth, including the video evidence that was supposed to be the officers’ defender.
Conditional Release
The law enforcement profession desperately needs brave police executives to dust off their body camera policy and their media relations strategy and revise it to where video is shared with specific conditions.
If any video is incomplete or edited, it should require media organizations insert a title slide describing what portion of the video is being shared, describe in detail the alteration, why there are any edits or deletions, watermark it as a partial or incomplete video and link to the complete video. Any news organization that fails to accommodate that reasonable request lands on our Brady list.
A police chief was blocked from a social media account from the major police organization when he questioned why the social channel was honoring the criminals shot and killed by the police but not recognizing officers who died in the line of duty. Of the half dozen national police organizations, only a third of them would come out in support of the individual patrol officer and put the situation in context.
Sheriffs and police chiefs must unite and resolve that their professional organizations will recognize officers publicly, when appropriate, to support them following a critical incident. There are more dangerous jobs in the United States than being a law enforcement officer - but none with a higher likelihood of being murdered by a criminal than police work.
Please pray for all the officers, deputies and agents who stood the line against anarchy during the last three years.
References:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2114880/12395736
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Excellent! This is begging for Courageous leaders to step up! Thanks, Roland, as your insights are spot on.
Excellent piece!