This reveals the lawyers are desperate.
We have found out that the body cams and the dash cam were off. So, the cops are negligent. And the fellow who pulled the trigger is probably guilty of at least manslaughter. It may even be inadmissible for them to say there was a loud noise or she made a sudden movement or her cell phone looked like a weapon or a nipple poked out of her nightie (which could scare the Mohammed out of any faithful Muslim), because they were supposed to record the scene.
Plus, there was an eye-witness. A passing bicyclist who stopped to observe. We can pretty much conclude that he’s not going to corroborate any made up story of the cops. PLUS, the fact of this eye-witness means the partner of the cop with the itchy trigger finger is going to, quick, turn states evidence in return for dismissal of potential aiding and abetting charges.
This leaves what for the defense? Some kind of smokescreen so the guy can plead to a lesser charge and serve minimal if any jail time.
Either that or the attorneys for the cop are just ringing up billable hours. If they’re public defendants, I figure there could be $1 million in discovery, jury selection, trial, post-conviction sentencing, appeals, etc. etc.
Could the smarty pants mayor have secretly ordered the cops to not have their body cameras on at all time to cover up a lot of the crimes that go on?
IMHO the whole bodycam/dashcam is a red herring.
Per regulations body cams aren’t turned on until they exit the vehicle. They were still inside. If they had been on, they would have just been taping the dashboard.
And every police car I’ve seen, the dashcam doesn’t go on until the key is turned. Just like in my vehicles. And all they would have gotten anyway was audio.
BANG! BANG!
If they had turned off the engine, the dashcam goes off. At least that’s the way it is in my friend’s cruiser.
There’s a lot hinky about this case, but I don’t think it’s the cameras.