Here’s why body cameras aren’t enough.
Think technology will fix racism? Think different.
Some people were hopeful enough to believe that body cameras would stem the proliferation of deaths and abuse at the hands of police since the death of Michael Brown. I wasn’t one of them. The footage of the shooting of Sam DuBose has given us video of all of the reasons why.
Cincinnati police officer Tensing, who originally told superiors that he shot DuBose after being dragged by the vehicle, was wearing a body camera. It captured the entire killing, which Hamilton County prosecutor Joe Deters called “totally unwarranted” and “the most asinine act I’ve ever seen a police officer make.”
For a while, America seemed to be in love with the body camera.
Body cameras became a hot topic after the death of Michael Brown last August. This Los Angeles Times op-ed, which argued that body cameras were essential for future policing, typified much of the sentiment in support of the devices.
Still, there is something inherently lazy about trying to use cameras as bandages for the gaping, oozing wound of the unique brand of fraternal, endemic racism alive and well in American policing.
This racism is, after all, the reason white men are 3.5 times less likely to be shot in an interaction by police than their black counterparts. Body cameras do nothing to address the culture that produces individuals who kill citizens. Nor do they address the laws, departments, or unions that protect them.
But body cameras aren’t just a lazy solution to bad, racist policing.
The issue here goes beyond the racial aspect: They’re a lazy solution to all bad policing. Five hundred fifty eight people have been killed by police this year, according to The Washington Post. Many victims were black, but many weren’t. Some of the shootings may have been justified, but others clearly weren’t.
How many need to unjustly die before we find a resolution more serious than body cameras? We need a nationwide overhaul of police tactics, hiring practices, policy, and legal recourse for citizens wronged by law enforcement.
And yet our political machine has a paucity of sympathy or answers for those killed by rogue police. After showing up at a black conference for black activists, and displaying a disturbing unwillingness to speak to black issues, Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders threw his weight behind body cams in Lousiana. He joins President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who also support the measure. Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, gutted the budget measure to provide them to police departments, while also slashing legal aid for the poor.
Neither party has positioned themselves on the side of justice in this issue, neither side has made any significant effort to reform police practices, and neither body cameras nor budget cuts will bring us much closer to stemming the tide of extrajudicial killing.
Technology can be productive.
Technology has blunted — and even eliminated — a host of problems for police. Two-way radios allow police to respond and track one another in real time. So does GPS.
Body cameras do serve a purpose: A body camera foiled a lie told by an officer who, history shows, probably would have been believed by a grand jury without the footage. But Tensing knew the camera was there. A 25-year-old university officer with four years of experience, he could not have been unaware of the scrutiny facing police, especially since much of said scrutiny has come down on Cleveland, four hours north of Cincinatti.
The presence of an all-seeing eye, a device with the power to either back up or refute any story he told, did not stop him from lying to his superiors. Nor did it stop his fellow officers from corroborating his story.
But most importantly, the camera didn’t stop the shooting from happening.
We should not focus our efforts on catching police in lies. We should focus our efforts on addressing what allows them to lie.
Technology is capable of many useful things, but it will neither solve nor outpace bad policing.
This story originally appeared on Boston.com.
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