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.
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
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—APLesley 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/APA 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/APHeavily-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/ReduxA 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/APA 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 PressCaptain 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—ReutersDarren 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/APTear 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 ImagesPolice in Ferguson fire tear gas in the direction of bottle-throwing crowds on Aug. 18, 2014.David Carson—St Louis Post-Dispatch / PolarisLaw enforcement officers look on during a protest on West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson on Aug. 18, 2014.Michael B. Thomas—AFP/Getty ImagesU.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 ImagesAn 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—ReutersMembers 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 ImagesA 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—APFerguson 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/APDemonstrators 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 ImagesAcademic 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—APLesley 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—EPAAfter 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—ReutersOn 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—APFerguson 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 ImagesTwo 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.
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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