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The One Battle Michael Brown’s Family Will Win

4 minute read

In the fevered moments after the grand jury’s decision not to charge Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, the family of the slain 18-year-old released a statement pleading for peace — and urging people to join their campaign to get police around the nation to wear cameras.

“We need to work together to fix the system that allowed this to happen,” the statement read. “Join with us in our campaign to ensure that every police officer working the streets in this country wears a body camera.”

The crusade is understandable. No video recordings of the Aug. 9 confrontation between Wilson and Brown exist, and eyewitness accounts of the incident were often in conflict. Some said Brown had his hands up when he was shot. Others said Brown was charging toward Wilson when he officer fired. To many, a camera on Wilson’s uniform would have ended the uncertainty and potentially avoided the subsequent tumult that engulfed the St. Louis suburb.

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The lesson wasn’t lost on other police departments. In the weeks after Brown’s death, numerous law-enforcement agencies around the U.S. began experimenting with body cameras. Anaheim, Calif.; Denver; Miami Beach; Washington, D.C.; and even Ferguson have all begun outfitting officers with cameras or announced plans to start. The movement Brown’s family called for the night Wilson was cleared has actually been growing since the day their son was killed.

“Police realize that they’re under greater levels of public scrutiny,” says Art Lurigio, a professor of psychology and criminal justice at Loyola University Chicago. “And the Michael Brown case is elevating this urgency. It’s bringing this discussion of cameras to a more fevered pitch.”

See 23 Key Moments From Ferguson

Police Shooting Missouri
On Aug. 9, 2014, unarmed teenager Michael Brown was fatally shot by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. This image provided by KMOV-TV shows investigators inspecting Brown's body.Tiffany Mitchell—AP
APTOPIX Police Shooting Missouri
Lesley McSpadden, Brown's mother, is comforted by her husband, Louis Head, on Aug. 9, 2014, after her son's deathHuy Mach—St. Louis Post-Dispatch/AP
Police Shooting Missouri
A fire burns at a QuikTrip store in Ferguson on Aug. 10, 2014, as protests turned violent one day after Brown's death. The night marked the first violent turn for the protests.David Carson—St. Louis Post-Dispatch/AP
Police move in to detain a protester in Ferguson, Mo.
Heavily-armed police advance on a protester on Aug. 11, 2014. Law enforcement's tactical response, which included military-grade weapons, tanks and SWAT teams, touched off a debate over the militarization of local police forces.Whitney Curtis—The New York Times/Redux
Missouri Police Shooting
A protester takes shelter from billowing smoke during demonstrations in Ferguson on Aug. 13, 2014. Such scenes were relatively common during the first week of protests.David Carson—St. Louis Post-Dispatch/AP
TEAR GAS SHOT AT PROTESTORS
A demonstrator throws back a tear gas container after tactical officers worked to break up a group of bystanders on Chambers Road near West Florissant in Ferguson on Aug. 13, 2014. Robert Cohen—St. Louis Post-Dispatch/MCT/Zuma Press
Johnson of the Missouri Highway Patrol addresses the media in Ferguson, Missouri
Captain Ron Johnson of the Missouri Highway Patrol addresses the media in Ferguson on Aug. 15, 2014. Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon appointed NIxon to coordinate law enforcement's response after local departments were criticized for fanning the flames.Lucas Jackson—Reuters
Darren Wilson
Darren Wilson at a Ferguson city council meeting on Feb. 11, 2014. The image was the first widely-circulated photo of Wilson after the shooting.City of Ferguson/AP
Outrage In Missouri Town After Police Shooting Of 18-Yr-Old Man
Tear gas rains down on a woman kneeling in the street with her hands in the air during a demonstration in Ferguson on Aug. 17, 2014. The "hands up, don't shoot" pose became the defining gesture of the protests.Scott Olson—Getty Images
Missouri race riot
Police in Ferguson fire tear gas in the direction of bottle-throwing crowds on Aug. 18, 2014.David Carson—St Louis Post-Dispatch / Polaris
US-CRIME-RACE-POLICE-SHOOTING
Law enforcement officers look on during a protest on West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson on Aug. 18, 2014.Michael B. Thomas—AFP/Getty Images
National Guard Called In As Unrest Continues In Ferguson
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder appeared with Capt. Ron Johnson at Drake's Place Restaurant in Ferguson on Aug. 20, 2014. Holder's visit was meant to calm tensions after almost 10 days of protests.Pablo Martinez Monsivais—Pool/Getty Images
Michael Brown Sr, yells out as his son's  casket is lowered into the ground at St. Peter's Cemetery in St. Louis
An anguished Michael Brown, Sr. yells as his son's casket is lowered into the ground at St. Peter's Cemetery in St. Louis, Mo., on Aug. 25, 2014. Richard Perry—Reuters
Rally Held in Ferguson Over Police Killing Of Michael Brown
Members of the Ferguson Police Department wear body cameras during a rally on Aug. 30, 2014, in Ferguson. Like a number of departments around the U.S., Ferguson police began using the wearable cameras after Michael Brown was killed. There are no video recordings of the incident involving Brown and officer Darren Wilson.Aaron P. Bernstein—Getty Images
Police Shooting Missouri Memorial
A fire on Sept. 23, 2014 burned a memorial for Michael Brown on the site where he was killed. The memorial was later rebuilt.Jacob Crawford—AP
Protesters call for resignation of Ferguson police chief
Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson, left, addresses protesters in front of the Ferguson Police Department, on Sept. 25, 2014. Protesters have called for Jackson to resign.Robert Cohen—St. Louis Post-Dispatch/AP
Ferguson St. Louis Protests
Demonstrators participate at a rally on the campus of St. Louis University on Oct. 13, 2014. Citizens around St. Louis continued to demonstrate throughout October, including during a performance by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and at a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game.Scott Olson—Getty Images
Cornel West
Academic Cornel West is taken into custody after performing an act of civil disobedience at the Ferguson, Mo., police station on Oct. 13, 2014.Charles Rex Arbogast—AP
UN Committee Against Torture
Lesley McSpadden, Michael Brown's mother, attends a press conference addressing the U.N. Committee Against Torture, in Geneva, Switzerland, on Nov. 12, 2014. Brown's parents testified in front of the committee about their son's death.Martial Trezzini—EPA
A police car burns on the street after a grand jury returned no indictment in the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri
After the announcement that the grand jury brought no charges against Darren Wilson, police officers and protesters faced off on a tense night in which cars and buildings were burned by protesters and tear gas thrown by police, in Ferguson, Mo. on Nov. 24, 2014.Jim Young—Reuters
Eric Holder
On March 4, 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice released two reports clearing Officer Wilson of any civil rights violations when he shot and killed Brown but found a pattern of explicit racism and unfair treatment of minorities by Ferguson police officers and local officials.Carolyn Kaster—AP
Outrage In Missouri Town After Police Shooting Of 18-Yr-Old Man
Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson stepped down March 11, 2015, after a federal report harshly criticized the police department, becoming the sixth Ferguson official to resign since the investigation. Scott Olson—Getty Images
Police officers respond to a fellow officer hit by gunfire outside the Ferguson Police Headquarters in Ferguson
Two police officers were shot outside the Ferguson Police Department March 12, 2015, during a demonstration that followed the resignation of the agency’s embattled police chief. The two officers—one from Webster Groves, Mo., the other from St. Louis County—were seriously injured.Lawrence Bryant—St. Louis American/Reuters

For police, cameras have the potential to offer visual evidence of confrontations, which could provide a level of public transparency and potentially save law-enforcement agencies millions of dollars in legal fees spent fighting and settling suits brought by citizens.

But only a few studies have been conducted on the effects body-worn cameras. The most frequently cited came out of the police department in Rialto, Calif., which found an 88% drop in the number of complaints filed against officers and a 60% decline in use of force incidents compared with the year before officers adopted cameras.

(MORE: All the Ways Darren Wilson Described Being Afraid of Michael Brown)

Most experts say that the Brown case has accelerated a discussion about cameras that was already taking place inside many of the country’s bigger departments thanks to the ubiquity of camera-equipped phones.

“The big question is not whether or not agencies will adopt body-worn cameras but the sorts of policies that will be put into place to monitor and control the use of this new technology,” says Victor Thompson, an expert in race and crime at Rider University in New Jersey.

For instance, Thompson says a camera that can be easily turned on and off at the discretion of an officer may be of little value because it would allow that officer to control what’s ultimately being recorded and fail to provide the kind of transparency activists are calling for. Other experts advocate establishing rules about how and when the cameras are used along with clear protocols for review of video footage and sanctions against officers if they fail to comply.

Not all cops are on board. As police departments increasingly experiment with making officers a mobile surveillance pod, some police unions are pushing back. They argue that having to turn on a camera during a threatening situation could lead to deadly consequences at a time when every second is important.

Such resistance is unlikely to stop the spread of cameras. In recent weeks, police departments in cities such as Cleveland and Dallas have announced plans to put cameras on officers or expand existing wearable programs.

“In 10, 15 years,” Lurigio says, “I think we’ll be talking about the camera in the way that today we talk about the baton or the badge.”

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