Not yet, anyway...
Posted on 04/07/2015 4:24:56 PM PDT by GrandJediMasterYoda
Cop charged with murder of motorist after jarring video surfaces
CHARLESTON, S.C. — A white South Carolina police officer has been charged with murder in the shooting death of a black motorist after a traffic stop. North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey told a hastily called news conference that city Patrolman Michael Thomas Slager was arrested and charged Tuesday after law enforcement officials saw a video of the shooting following a Saturday traffic stop. Authorities say the victim, 50-year-old Walter Lamer Scott of Charleston, was shot after the officer already hit him with a stun gun.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Okay, a Google-sized server farm will be needed to archive all of the cop footage that will be collected and the cost of those will be astronomical to the taxpayer. Just imagine every single police department in the U.S. getting body cams and then they have to save all that footage.
I know how much a Freepathon costs. I also know how much bandwidth and servers cost. I can assure you that 100% of those funds are not being used to cover expenses for this site.
Even concealed carry laws prohibit carriers from chasing after suspects and firing at them because their lives are no longer in danger.
Really? What’s the other money go to?
You really don’t understand technology. To put it in perspective, I purchased a security system for my shop which recorded seven days’ worth of digital video from the cameras (motion-activated). This cost less than $1000. It is not necessary to archive cop bodycam video indefinitely—when there is an incident, the video surrounding that incident needs to be entered as evidence, not all the video.
Good question. I would guess it goes to salaries. Is there a place on FR where you can see the financials?
Well we don’t know what anybody is going to want to keep. Laws concerning the archiving of footage haven’t been figured out yet for places that don’t have the body cams in use. Any minor incident could suddenly be a factor in a case involving the police if some lawyer wants to see what a cop was doing on such-and-such a day before an offense took place. The public and the lawyers will not be satisfied with a highlight reel.
I do not know.
Yes, that’s true. However, having a week’s worth of video leading up to a shooting, for example, is better than having no video at all. You should also consider the effect that cameras would have on the bad cops.
Not yet, anyway...
This cop is so screwed and probably a dead man because he will not survive in prison if they put him in to general pop. What the hell was he thinking? He is going to do major hard time. If he just shot the guy and explained that he blanked out or had some other mental excuse he probably could have done a few years, but planting evidence and on camera? Forget it. And they go hard on cops. A cop named Justin Volpe in New York city got 30 years straight no parole for sticking a broom handle up a suspects behind in the 1990s if you remember that case. What got him those 30 years more than anything was he lied about it. And his victim lived by the way and he still got 30 years. This cop though, holy cow he is finished, he is facing murder plus lying and planting evidence. He’s going to probably do the same sentence if not life but he won’t survive. This is weird, it’s like suicide, like he intentionally wanted to destroy himself because if you’ll notice, after he shoots him he looks at the guy with the camera so he knows he is being filmed yet he still plants the taser.
Well DUH!
Ya gots t run fast to outrun a bullet!
Well, I’m just looking at this from the perspective of all government e-mails/communications are to be archived. I can imagine the same rules will apply to body cams, probably recording in HD.
It’s hard to imagine why anybody keeps working at such a stressful job, knowing they can’t follow the rules. It’s bad enough he shot the guy but to deliberately move evidence...
Cop cars already contain cameras, and apparently that’s not too taxing. How long are those archived?
It all just makes me angry and sad.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.