Body Cameras Were Sold as a Tool of Police Reform. Ten Years Later, Most of the Footage Is Kept From Public View. - eviltoast
There were 101 people killed at the hands of police in June 2022. More than a year later, police had released body-camera footage of only 33 of those killings, ProPublica has found.

At least 1,201 people were killed in 2022 by law enforcement officers, about 100 deaths a month, according to Mapping Police Violence, a nonprofit research group that tracks police killings. ProPublica examined the 101 deaths that occurred in June 2022, a time frame chosen because enough time had elapsed that investigations could reasonably be expected to have concluded. The cases involved 131 law enforcement agencies in 34 states.

In 79 of those deaths, ProPublica confirmed that body-worn camera video exists. But more than a year later, authorities or victims’ families had released the footage of only 33 incidents.

Philadelphia signed a $12.5 million contract in 2017 to equip its entire police force with cameras. Since then, at least 27 people have been killed by Philadelphia police, according to Mapping Police Violence, but in only two cases has body-camera video been released to the public.

ProPublica’s review shows that withholding body-worn camera footage from the public has become so entrenched in some cities that even pleas from victims’ families don’t serve to shake the video loose.

  • hh93@lemm.ee
    54·
    11 months ago

    why else would this be one of the only countries where officers are lethally armed around the clock

    Because it’s also the only country where many citizens are lethally armed around the clock I’d guess

    If you stop a random person in traffic in Europe for routine control then it’s extremely unlikely that they have a gun in their car and even less likely that they will pull it on you.

    If you are permanently having to think about scenarios where random people pull a gun on you because it’s not a very unlikely situation to happen then it’s not unreasonable to expect certain paranoia to start to form…

    While the stats for “people killed by police” are always shown around I’d guess that the “police killed by citizens” also is much higher in the US.

    Gun control is the only solution that even has a chance to remove this spiralling violence of trigger happy cops imho

      • hh93@lemm.ee
        1·
        11 months ago

        I’d guess a police officer is seeing more than 50 random people a day though which makes it a daily occurrence to be in contact with people carrying which actually strengthens my point

        • steveman_ha@lemmy.world
          4·
          11 months ago

          You’d think at some point they’d adapt to the stress of such a situation (especially since they literally signed up for it, and ostensibly trained for it), so that they can handle it effectively without murdering others, though…

          Soldiers fighting wars in hostile countries are (in theory) held to higher standards in this way.