Law & Justice: May 2012 Archives
This isn't surprising: St. Louis police don't like to have cameras in their patrol cars because the recordings are used against them.
City police officers believe in-car cameras are being used against them, and they are trying to find ways to avoid driving cars equipped with them, according to union grievances.Emails dated April 13 from Capt. Mary Edwards-Fears to superiors and underlings reveal officers' concerns that cameras -- installed in about half of the city's 300 patrol division cars -- make police vulnerable to second-guessing.
"We are missing critical evidence for our cases when we allow them to avoid using vehicles with cameras in them, for fear of being caught in a compromising position," Edwards-Fears wrote. "Your job as managers in the business is to assist your officers in following the rules and regulations, not assisting them in circumventing them."
Some police officers don't like to think of the public as their boss, but rather as their inferiors. It doesn't seem like a winning argument for police to argue against patrol car cameras by complaining that the cameras catch too much bad behavior by police officers. It's good to see that the police management isn't giving in to the complaints.
