
Chicago Police Hid Mics, Destroyed Dashcams to Block Audio, Records Show - danso
https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20160127/archer-heights/whats-behind-no-sound-syndrome-on-chicago-police-dashcams
======
bbarn
Let's see.. in the 20 odd years here in Chicago, the sum of my police
interactions are:

Hit by a white shirt (supervisor) who came out of an alley on clark st while
in a bike lane - somehow my fault, detained.

Hit on foot, by a car with no lights on in a residential neighborhood while
crossing at a crosswalk - somehow my fault for being outside while there was
"a suspect being hunted"

Watching officers on foot in 7-11's, local shops, etc, just walk in, take what
the want, and leave.

Helping a friend move to another city because he ended a relationship with a
cop who made his life a living hell after they broke up.

Being accused of trying to "make the neighborhood look bad" when I called the
fire department because my neighbor had smoke coming out of the door in his
apartment (turns out he was just passed out drunk and left a pizza in the
oven, but what else do you do when you bang on a door pouring smoke and no one
answers?)

So yeah, once my S/O finishes what she needs to to change jobs, we're out of
here I think. The police force here is really the icing on the cake of so much
else that's overpriced, corrupt, or just plain sucks about Chicago. All the
good things it's supposed to have just seem completely irrelevant to me
anymore.

~~~
callinyouin
I'm moving to Chicago in a few months. Are there certain neighborhoods that
should be avoided on the basis of corrupt police activity? I wonder because I
could see neighborhoods that are relatively safe in terms of civilian crime,
but cops posted in that area might have nothing better to do than mess with
its inhabitants.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Lifelong Chicagoan here. I've never, ever had these issues and all my run-ins
with cops have been fairly uneventful, if not pleasant. Chicago cops have
better things to do than give traffic tickets usually and the last time I got
pulled over (blew through red from a fast yellow) and I was just let go with a
warning.

Recently, there is a mentally unstable person in my neighborhood and he
decided to sit on my porch and light pieces of paper on fire one day. I called
and they were there in 15 minutes and said they could do what they can to help
this guy. The cops seemed geniunly concerned about his and my safety. I was
floored by how well this call went.

I live in one of the decent, but not wealthy neighborhoods. Chicago is about
1/3rd horrible ghetto and 1/3rd marginal and 1/3rd decent. Life in those other
2/3rd's is very, very different. If you're outside of the typical "northside"
neighborhoods the cops are much tougher and much more paranoid about being
hurt or killed. I lived in one of those neighborhoods and there's a completely
different vibe there. Cops pull up with 3+ squads at every call, take up
defensive positions, hands close to weapons, etc. A dog attacked mine when I
lived in Humboldt Park and the cops came out and were cool about it, but
clearly on edge as I lived in gang territory. In other neighborhoods, I don't
see this edge, or the defensive tactices. So yeah, there's something here
about cop safety in marginal neighborhoods. I imagine provoking these guys in
these neighborhoods leads to bad outcomes.

Also, not to attack the GP, but there is a Chicago cyclist personality I see
frequently. They do dick moves with their bikes, cause accidents, never obey
any traffic law, scream at pedestrians, have unbelievable senses of
entitlements, kick/punch cars, and constantly pretend to be innocent and are
often incredibly confrontational when criticized. I can't imagine cops being
nice to these people and the GP sounds like one of these people, which may
explain many of his experiences. Chicago cyclists have a bad rep for a reason.

That said, I have next to zero fear of the police and lots of fear in regards
to the high criminality and massive gang population here. I've been
intimidated and threatened on the train multiple times, car/house robbed, had
to walk lady friends to their homes/cars many times not out of courtesy but
because there was a known rapist loose or the gang kids were clearly looking
to start trouble that night, have been uncomfortably close to a gang shooting
at least once, hit 3x by DUI drivers, etc. I suspect Chicago cops are tough
because Chicago has so much serious crime. This isn't the suburbs.

Wikipedia: Chicago has more gang members than any other city in the United
States: 150,000. The city had 532 murders in 2012.

Chicago tribune: Chicago police officers shot 22 people in 2015, eight of them
fatally.

532 vs 8, guys. Oh, 150,000 gang members is 5% of the population. That's
right, this is a major city where 1 in 20 are gang members.

That said, the powerful Chicago police union is pretty horrible. It exists to
protect the worst of the worst, out of some misplaced sense of pride. I would
love to see public sector unions eliminated in the city, if not nationwide.
They just make things worse for everyone. Society needs an alternative to the
union system in the public sector. I find it bothersome that all the recent
ant-police sentiment still has not percolated to the police unions. I suspect
this is a political thing where liberals can't attack their own institutions.
So expect zero real reform.

FWIW, I am darker skinned and do not pass as "white." I'm typically clocked as
a Latino. I've always owned older cars , dress very casually outside of work,
and live way below my means. I doubt I was treated in any special way because
of status/race. I don't fall into the preferred categories.

~~~
bbarn
"Also, not to attack the GP, but there is a Chicago cyclist personality I see
frequently. They do dick moves with their bikes, cause accidents, never obey
any traffic law, scream at pedestrians, and constantly pretend to be innocent
and are often incredibly confrontational when criticized. I can't imagine cops
being nice to these people and the GP sounds like one of these people, which
may explain many of his experiences."

No, I'm the mild mannered, just let me get home without dying type. Stopping
at lights, yielding at stop signs, pedestrian in crosswalks. Not in a
particular hurry to get anywhere usually, overweight, calm demeanor. What
makes me "sound like" one of these people to you? You'll note I mention this
is the total sum of my interactions over 20 years in this city. I have yet to
have a positive one, but still, there aren't many to speak of. Also, only the
one experience there had anything to do with being on a bicycle.

~~~
monksy
You should mention bikes on r/Chicago.

\----

As a pedestrian and a driver... screw the bikers. 95% of them are really
shitty. The other 5% are well experienced in biking, and they hate the 95% of
the other ones as well.

------
moomin
Just to be clear: what we are looking at is a concerted and coordinated
criminal conspiracy to cover up a range of activities including murder.

~~~
ams6110
_a concerted and coordinated criminal conspiracy_

Yes. It's Chicago. You've just described city government in six words.

~~~
__jal
Another poster already alluded to the point, but I'd like to make it explicit:
if you believe Chicago is exceptional in this, you are wrong. The NYPD is
almost as bad (as far as we know, the NYPD doesn't have an off-the-books
torture chamber[1], rather preferring to sodomize arrestees with brooms in the
regular jails on a more ad hoc basis).

But just as life-destroying are the things that go on in smaller communities,
where talking about conspiracy is just as valid, but the stakes, departments
and communities are smaller, so it doesn't get as much attention. I know from
personal experience that small town cops can be just as awful, and power
structures in small towns don't get the same push back as they do in larger
places.

I'm pretty sure we are seeing the beginnings of a sea change here.

Citizen surveillance tech has reached the point that the behavior of police
can't be ignored any more, and the disconnect between law, policy preferences
and "rough justice" as actually practiced is shocking to people who lived
comfortable enough lives to not notice before[2].

Prosecutors and especially judges, always slow to change when change makes
their jobs harder, will take longer to get used to the notion that wink-and-
nod isn't going to work any more. Police unions are going to lose this fight,
especially as activists are starting to become savvy to the tactical advantage
of splitting Republicans between law and order fears and union busters.

The result, at least hopefully, will be police that, if not actually part of
the community again, are not able to function as the biggest gang around with
legal cover.[3]

[1] [http://www.cbsnews.com/news/chicago-police-abused-
detainees-...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/chicago-police-abused-detainees-
loman-square-lawsuit/)

[2] Not casting any aspirations there; we all pick and choose where our
outrage lands to some extent, I'm just as oblivious to some injustices as
other people are to this. It is simply human nature to worry about things
closer to one's self.

[3] Not all police, some of them are very good at what they do, etc. At least
we can retire the "few bad apples" deflection.

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
What about splitting the left with people who despise police unions and those
who support all public sector unions 100% of the time?

~~~
frandroid
I don't see a lot of people on the left supporting police unions just because
they're unions. Some will support their right to unionize but none of the
subsequent behaviour from police unions. You can't really split the left in a
significant way on this.

------
SwellJoe
The police forces in most of America have become a magnet for sociopaths and
bullies. There is such a deeply held belief and culture of covering up
wrongdoing by fellow officers that it provides a safe space for the absolute
worst behavior humanity has to offer. And, because there is still a strongly
held belief among most of the nation that, "most cops are good" or even that
most cops are downright heroic, that to question or criticize police is to put
a target on your back.

A number of my friends are anti-police brutality activists (a few relatively
well-known nationwide for it, but all are known by name by many in the local
and state PD), and they have quite long arrest records; all bullshit charges,
none of which stuck, but all part of a campaign by the police to make their
lives miserable. One "accidentally" had his head smacked into a marble floor,
hard enough to cause a concussion and a pool a blood on the floor and a night
at the hospital, while he was passively filming police at an unrelated
protest.

This is not restricted to Chicago, though Chicago seems to be quite far
advanced on the path to being the worst.

In short: I don't know what should replace police in the US, but _drastic_
change is needed. Not merely reform; the whole damned system needs to be torn
down and rebuilt from scratch. The prison industrial complex, of which police
are the front line foot soldiers, is a national disgrace.

------
songshu
We need badge-equivalent cameras. What I mean is that we need to make cameras
work the same way as badges and uniforms, in the sense that you just can't do
police work if you don't have a working camera. A working camera has a red
light on it which means that it is currently streaming (possibly buffering if
temporarily out of wireless range).

The police don't have to record anything, they just need to stream somewhere
with associated meta data. NGOs will come forward to read the streams and save
them.

I understand it will be hard to get unions to agree to this and I don't have a
solution, but I'm minded of the reforms made to policing in Northern Ireland
as a success story.

~~~
brandonbloom

         you just can't do police work if you don't have a working camera
    

This is already becoming the policy in many forward thinking agencies.

    
    
        they just need to stream somewhere with associated meta data
    

There are real challenges, both technical and practical. Technically, you've
got to worry about connectivity and battery life. Practically, somebody has to
pay for it all! There's also many genuine use cases for turning off cameras
during a shift, not the least of which is that officers have to use the
bathroom just like the rest of us, but others like when talking to
confidential informants or at the request of domestic abuse victims. None of
these problems are insurmountable, but it's going to take time, energy, and
money.

    
    
        I understand it will be hard to get unions to agree to this
    

That was true a few years ago, but now it's becoming very clear that the
majority of decent officers want body cameras. They protect them individually
and taxpayers against an endless stream of lawsuits. Google around: studies
show that they work, very well, for reducing complaints and use-of-force
incidents.

Disclaimer: I work on Axon body cameras in Seattle. If you (or anybody else!)
are interested in writing code that will help put a camera and less-leathal
weapon on every police officer, please email me: brandon@evidence.com

~~~
songshu
Thanks, that actually made me feel more optimistic about it, although I hadn't
thought of the issues you raise. Keeping a camera charged and working
shouldn't be harder than other maintenance already needed such as keeping a
firearm clean or keeping a car on the road. If we refine the condition to "you
can't appear in public or interact with the public without your camera" then
the bathroom problem goes away. Connectivity and confidentiality are harder
problems. Confidentiality in particular if it's the case that that's also
where a lot of the corruption is.

~~~
brandonbloom
There will be no singular panacea for corruption. However, I'd rather put a
camera on every officer on their own terms now, rather than pray for them to
magically cooperate with some all-or-nothing plan in the future. If nothing
else, it will make a strict plan easier to move to later.

------
atomicbeanie
This is interesting. Normally police departments claim they have few ways to
catch corrupt police. And I think there is more than a little truth to that.
However, in this case the article shows that corrupt police are revealing
themselves through the practice of destroying equipment. This could be an
indicator that acts as a "canary" for police corruption! If police departments
appropriately monitored such indicators, they may be on verge of discovering
an easy method to spot criminal police officers before they do the damage to
society.

~~~
atomicbeanie
Of course, if the police do stuff like this: [http://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2016/feb/07/leaked-police...](http://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2016/feb/07/leaked-police-files-contain-guarantees-disciplinary-records-
will-be-kept-secret) it is unlikely they are willing to take responsibility
for enforcement. Rarely does enforcement happen without oversight. By hiding
police records they protect themselves, the police department leaders. We
should, however, be able to do better. Public records, paid for by the public,
are easily considered public property. I think courts could handle this.

------
pjc50
Until police are jailed for this, nothing will improve.

What's the US equivalent of the Independent Police Complaints Commission?

~~~
ghufran_syed
Part of what stops police from routinely infringing civil rights in the
pursuit of justice is the legal doctrine that evidence obtained illegally is
inadmissible, as is all evidence gained from further (lawful) investigation
based on that evidence [1]. what is needed is a law that operates in a similar
way, that states that in any lawsuit or complaint against the police, there is
a presumption of guilt on the part of the police officer in the event of
'malfunction' of monitoring devices. The only way to make the police comply is
to make it in their self-interest (or at least in the interests of the city
that would regularly have to pay out presumptive damages) to make sure they
are working.

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree)

Edit: typo

~~~
pc86
> Although the Constitution of the United States does not cite it explicitly,
> presumption of innocence is widely held to follow from the 5th, 6th, and
> 14th amendments. See also Coffin v. United States and In re Winship. [0]

One does not sign away Constitutional rights because they become a police
officer.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presumption_of_innocence#The_f...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presumption_of_innocence#The_fundamental_right)

~~~
0xffff2
What if consequences based on the presumption of guilt where limited to
immediate termination and being placed on a list barring the accused from
working as a police officer in the future? Is presumption of guilt allowed if
there are no criminal penalties?

------
MCRed
A big part of the problem is our system is set up to favor the governent--
when there's a trial, the judge, the prosecutor, the cops (who handle and
control all the evidence) the lab (many scandals in the past 40 years about
fraudulent lab work) all work for the government. Even your lawyer is
compromised by not being allowed to make certain arguments and the risk of
offending the judge (Who there will be future cases before.) The jury are
given blatantly tampering instructions from the judge, eliminating much of the
value of an independent jury system.

So, who is going to try cops when they are corrupt?

By what mechanism can we the people enforce the law on our own government?

It seems silly to go before our own government and beg for them to obey their
own laws.

Sometimes we get lucky- like gay marriage- but how many decades did that take?
It was 1980s when the supreme court ruled that sodomy could be criminalized on
the basis of "a thousand years of christian tradition" (namely NOT on the
basis of the constitution.)

So of course, we will continue to see more and more corruption until like AIDS
is now, and the wars overseas -- the news simply stops reporting about it,
because it has become the background noise of the society we live in.

That's going the wrong direction.

I'm far more afraid of being killed by a random cop than I am by Walmart or
anything in walmart. They all have an incentive to keep me safe so I'll keep
buying. They would face consequences (not even criminal, just market
consequences) if they were killing people.

Cops on the other hand, they get away with it. And blatantly do day in and day
out.

------
Shivetya
I do not understand how these cannot be made idiot proof and cop proof. You
can buy the simplest dash cams from China that record HD video and sound that
take mere minutes to set up for under a hundred bucks. The first step needs to
mandate a tamper proof system and disabling of any police car from leaving
they yard unless the device passes on all tests. Then it should be required to
report periodically to a central location if it is working and if not the
officer can be directed to obtain a new car. Any device found damaged or
tampered with should be a federal offense and investigated by the FBI.

As in, those given the ultimate responsibility should be held the most strict
standard. Don't like it, get out.

~~~
ams6110
I'm sorry but this is hoplessly naive. It's _Chicago_. One of the most
historically corrupt machine governments in the USA. Nothing gets done without
dozens of people getting paid off if not in cash than in favors or quid pro
quo. It's not even something that people on the inside find unusual. It's just
how it is, and always has been.

It's a _much_ bigger problem than just mandating tamper-proof cameras.

~~~
Shivetya
This is why I state, these items must be tamper proof and back by regulations
and laws. Likely all this must be at the federal level and it become a crime
on the federal level to tamper with them.

So you make it nearly impossible to break/tamper without trying and its a
federal offense to do so. Simple.

~~~
ams6110
Who is buying the cameras? Who is installing the cameras? Who is determining
if they are tampered with? Who is making the laws concerning the cameras?
Chicago city politicians or employees. All of whom are being paid and
influenced to do do their jobs in a way that favors the right people.

You seem to be suggesting a federal takeover of the Chicago police department
-- a city whose mayor is the former chief of staff of the president, who
himself is a Chicagoan. Good luck with that.

------
DannyBee
" “How they determine that it’s purposely caused damages, I’d like to know,”
Angelo said last month. “How they can figure out what is mechanical or what is
human error, I’d like to know.”"

Yeah, i mean how could you possibly tell whether it was human error for things
like "wires cut with diagonal cutters".

If the officers are so worried, they could do something fairly simple. They
could take a cell phone video of what's going on when they try to turn on the
audio!

Crazy, i know

~~~
alistairSH
To be fair, Angelo's job (head of the local union) is to protect and advocate
for the officers. Yes, he sounds completely ridiculous, but he can't come out
and say "yup, they broke the dashcams."

(In no way do I mean to imply he is correct, or that the system isn't
completely broken.)

~~~
DannyBee
Fun fact: it's not effecitve advocacy if nobody believes you :)

~~~
alistairSH
Fair enough. :)

------
mtgx
This is what some of us feared with the push for police bodycams, that they
will eventually use the evidence only when it suits the police, but not anyone
else, which could generally be even _worse_ than not having the video at all.
The footage should be required to be uploaded to a federal agency's cloud
every 24h.

And now some states are even giving the police permission to do that:

[http://www.wthr.com/story/31063724/bill-allowing-police-
to-w...](http://www.wthr.com/story/31063724/bill-allowing-police-to-withhold-
body-camera-video-passes-indiana-house)

This is why Larry Lessig has been so right about the need to _fix democracy
first_. As long as that isn't fixed first, the corrupt systems will always
infect even the best ideas and policies that manage to pass at the federal or
state level. You need proper democracy so people can easily throw out leaders
who side with those with power and protect them.

------
13thLetter
Doing a ctrl-F for "emanuel" or "daley" in this comment section produced zero
results, which is unfortunately rather telling.

Chicago has been run by the same political party since 1931. If the police are
this bad and you keep re-electing the people running the city anyway, _you are
part of the problem._ Throw the bastards out, don't just grump on message
boards and then keep obediently pulling the same lever in the voting booth
where it counts.

~~~
pessimizer
There are no good choices. The challengers are generally people who have heard
that Chicago/Illinois are great places to feed. In Chicago, there's The
Machine: a system for raising large numbers of votes for Duh Mare's candidates
from people who don't care who wins, they just want their Alderman to respond
to their phone calls. Outsiders like Blagojevich and Rauner at the state level
are just as awful.

The amount of Republican pond scum that Illinois has had to deal with easily
compares to the amount of Democratic pond scum that it has had to deal with,
it's just a matter of upstate/downstate/collar counties preference which
scumbag you vote for. They're all ultimately friends anyway; I think Emanuel
once worked for Rauner.

------
CPLX
Though I agree that this behavior is reprehensible and probably criminal, the
comments here seem to miss at least some of the human dynamic here.

I can't hardly imagine that most people posting here would ever consider a job
where literally every word or sound that came out of their mouth during their
entire working life was recorded, and likely subject to public disclosure.
Saying that this is what cops signed up for is not a compelling counter
argument either, as this is new and most of the cops in question didn't sign
up to work in an environment like that at all.

It seems odd to be even somewhat defending Chicago cops but someone should
point out that there are two sides to this.

~~~
grandalf
We trust cops to protect the weak, to wield and use firearms, and to enforce
our laws. This puts them in a tremendous position to abuse their power.

The recording devices were installed precisely because abuses of power and
criminal activity were already a big problem. The thugs destroyed the
recording devices because they want to continue abusing their power, period.

For an honest cop, the recordings offer proof of proper conduct. In the
setting of lethal force, the truth is very important. If I follow protocol and
shoot someone, I hope there is a video showing that I followed the playbook
perfectly.

I've been bullied by cops a few times. Their job is tough, but it strikes me
as odd that they bully someone like me, an obviously harmless, non-criminal.

~~~
sosuke
Your comment brings up the old and terrible response "if you haven't done
anything wrong you have nothing to hide"

Is that irony? I never can tell if I use that word right.

~~~
grandalf
As the other person who replied points out, it's very different for a trusted
government official and a private citizen. The official gives up his/her right
to privacy when acting in the role of public enforcer of laws...

~~~
sosuke
You're both quite right and so I can only imagine that isn't impressed enough
on newly minted government officials.

------
anigbrowl
Chicago PD needs to be disbanded and rebuilt from scratch under federal
supervision. I had a lot of police in my family growing up and revered them as
public servants, now I cross the street when I see a cop and won't give them
the time of day. Yeah, a lot of cops are decent people doing a hard job, but
no more respect until they clean up their own act.

------
Zigurd
There is a near-total failure of the press to dig in to police corruption.
When a case like this happens, the victim's name is splashed in the papers,
and the press camps out on the victim's family's lawn. That's backward, and it
does nothing but create some sensation.

The cop involved in the shooting, his personal life, his family, his buddies
in the PD, the cops who witnessed the event, their supervisors, etc. should be
the ones under the TV lights. That's where you will find the perjurers and the
corrupt.

------
tptacek
A reminder that the primary election for Anita Alvarez, one of the country's
worst states attorneys and the person with the most discretion in pursuing
cases like this, is this March.

------
tedks
This has been the rebuttal every time the argument "we just need bodycams on
police" comes up in the latest thread about police indiscriminately raping or
abusing women/shooting black men in the street like hunters shooting
deer/pepper spraying protesters at point blank range for having the audacity
to stage a sit-in.

Body cams won't magically make police accountable or less corrupt. Power
corrupts. The only solution is to take power away from police.

~~~
ohitsdom
We do need bodycams on police, but the program needs to be properly
administered. Documentation when things break, enough spares so malfunctions
are quickly and easily replaced. The Chicago PD is clearly rife with
corruption, so you can't just point to this program and say it won't work.
There are lessons to be learned here, and they can be avoided with actual (and
immediate) accountability.

~~~
tedks
I think it's naive to assume that prosecutors will _ever_ prosecute cops
without massive public outcry, that police departments are at all capable of
policing themselves (including documenting broken bodycams), or even that
politicians are going to have enough teeth to stand up to the police unions.

It's so naive it borders on stupidity. Do you really think "documentation"
would change anything? It'd just lead to "Oops, didn't know that was broken
sarge, I'll get a spare." "Oops, looks like all the spares are gone. Sarge,
can you order some more?" "Oops, forgot to order some spares. Maybe I'll get
to it tomorrow."

Chicago is especially corrupt (as far as I know it's the only metropolitan
police force with its own CIA-esque black site), but it's _absolutely_ naive
to think this can work anywhere. This is just the tip of the spear.

------
thorntonbf
This is a problem at the top and the bottom of the department, and it won't
get fixed until both sides are held appropriately accountable.

The beat officers don't care because their management stack doesn't care. This
should be pursued criminally, and would be were it anyone else messing with
municipal equipment.

This is a departmental corruption issue first and foremost - and it's the
senior management that should be held to account. Unfortunately, the problem
won't be fixed until some of them go to jail and/or are made to make
compensation for the damages and time spent repairing the system. Only then
will the policies change to where the guys on the street quit damaging
equipment.

~~~
ihsw
It extends out of the department as well -- look no further than the DA and
the stable of state prosecutors for another cesspool of laziness and neglect.

~~~
thorntonbf
Agreed. And, that's actually pretty scary.

When it comes to Ferguson-type departmental corruption, it shows just how
institutionalized the racism is - and how far it extends outside of the
departments.

We should likely spend more time on this, as in this light, it doesn't matter
what changes are made at a departmental level - there's no path to success on
their own.

Change is going to have to be at the elected official level - but those
systems are so gerrymandered, and so corrupt that it presents a really
difficult problem.

------
cant_kant
"The head of the police authority review board just resigned.

An off-the-books police facility where over 7,000 people were taken and had
their rights trampled was uncovered.

So many people were tortured by the Chicago Police Department that a
reparations fund was created.

So many people were wrongfully convicted that the city has now been labeled
the "false confession capital of the world.""

[http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-chicago-
police...](http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-chicago-police-
department-corrupt-country-article-1.2457985)

------
rubberstamp
When they can always get away with slap on the wrist, why not destroy camera
or turn it off before shooting someone. Some other cop is going to back any
and all claims in court. There is no evidence anyway. They make sure of that.
I'm still waiting to see what happened with Ian's case. At least some are
indicted because of cams now a days. Turning of cam should have some mark on
service records and effect their pay/promotions etc. Whats the need of cop is
not to obey and enforce law?

~~~
Cthulhu_
In this case, charge the police officer with murder and obstruction of
justice; the camera footage would exonerate them if they killed legitimately,
after all. Disabling a camera means they've got something to hide.

~~~
rubberstamp
[1] [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/01/body-cam-
captures...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/01/body-cam-captures-
mans-final-words-begging-the-cops-to-get-off-of-him/)

[2] [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/01/man-arrested-
jail...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/01/man-arrested-jailed-for-
filming-cop-settles-lawsuit-and-gets-72500/)

In case of [1], that man(and many others) will still be alive if cops behaved
professionally rather than behaving like a bunch of _____

In case of [2], why weren't the cops charged with obstruction of justice

There is no one overseeing police behavior, they can get away unless someone
with enough time and money takes them to the courts and even then they get too
little punishment.

------
thomasec
The CPD and City of Chicago have long operated under their own terms, and they
need to be very careful now that there is a national focus on them. The common
perception from outsiders of the city has always been "well....that's just
Chicago" \- think when characters like Rod Blagojevich make it to the national
spotlight. With high profile cases of police corruption at the very highest
level, I think the "charm" of corrupt politics and government start to go
away.

I lived there for 7 years before relocating elsewhere, and at no point did it
ever feel like the city was operating on behalf of its residence. There is
segregation unlike anything I've seen in any other major city that is entirely
ignored, the "startup" culture that they've been trying to cultivate for years
is complete BS and at odds with how anti-business the city is, and now people
are starting to see what happens when large government organizations go
unchecked for decades.

I guess the one silver lining about incidents like this is that it should put
some national pressure (and hopefully, accountability) on the CPD. I am aware
that things like this happen elsewhere, but having lived in about a half dozen
cities in the US, I never felt like the problem was as large and systemic as I
observed in Chicago.

------
GordonS
Is anyone really surprised with this?

These things _have_ to be made tamper-evident, otherwise this is going to
happen.

~~~
hwstar
There needs to be seals on the cameras, and a connection to the police radio
in the car which reports tampering back to the dispatch room.

Any deliberate destruction should lead to disciplinary action up to and
including termination.

~~~
ihsw
Good luck proving deliberate destruction -- "accidents happen" and noisy hand-
waving will result in nothing beyond three-day suspensions and desk jockeying.

~~~
hwstar
If there's a pattern, then a second hidden camera can be installed watching
the first camera.

You are correct when it comes to discipline, the police union will stand up to
bad actor's behalf. That cultural issue will be a tough nut to crack.

------
TheMagicHorsey
How is disabling cameras and audio recorders only a slap on the wrist?
Something is deeply wrong with policing in this country.

------
shostack
I'd love to know where Obama is in all of this given his South Side heritage.

Also, corrupt cops are a very real thing in Chicago. Dated a girl briefly in
Lakeview who warned me that I didn't want to meet her dad as he was a cop and
it eventually came out that he was pretty fucking corrupt.

The relationship ended for other reasons, but holy crap was I determined to
end it amicably. Last thing I wanted was to be on the shitlist of a corrupt
Chicago cop/dad.

------
benclarke
Police dashcams and bodycams are there to protect officers as much as the
public. This being said, I can totally understand why many officers aren't too
thrilled about being recorded every second of their shift, and clearly in
Chicago several of them have taken action. Police officers are thrown into
highly stressful situations every single day, and even "good" cops will make
poor decisions from time to time. I think Police dash cams are in the public's
best interest, and strongly believe that citizen journalism is helping
communities hold authorities accountable, but there needs to be a balance
between accountability and unfair scrutiny. Once this balance is found,
hopefully incidents such as those described in the article will drop
significantly.

------
chowes
This seems like a good use case for
[https://petitions.whitehouse.gov](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov), no? I
have to imagine such a blatent abuse of the system would have to warrant more
than a cookie-cutter answer from the administration.

------
photonwins
I grew up in an Asian country where I have seen police corruption first hand
more than once and I always wished my country had better educated and morally
strong individuals who would protect the weaker sections of the society
instead of siding with rich/powerful people even if they are criminals.

I always wished like in the west police would enforce the law regardless of
the status of that individual and that police and other govt officials are
better paid and hence there was no need for them to get corrupted for the sake
few extra bucks.

I am currently working in one of those "developed" countries in the west and
observing things around me, reading articles/comments like here. It appears
that, it is not really very different here either. I guess human greed is
universal.

~~~
vacri
Police in the US are very much not like police in other Anglo countries; they
are much more adversarial.

Not to say the other police are perfect, but it seems much worse in the US.
Example: I'm from Australia, and was recounting a story here on HN about how I
don't like that subtle power play when police pull you over and talk down to
you in the car. So I get out (I'm very tall) and wait for them in a friendly
manner. It changes the tone of the traffic stop. Doesn't change the outcome,
but it's hard for them to talk down to someone they have to physically look up
to.

On relaying this story, multiple HN'ers from the US thought I was genuinely
putting my life at risk of being shot by the police, and told me I should
never ever do that. This is a _genuinely foreign_ concept to me - that I
should be fearful that police might be predisposed to shooting me for getting
out of the car. That these folks even have that general fear speaks volumes as
to the excessive force the US police use.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
But see, in the US, the occupants of cars are _much more likely_ to try to use
force on police officers, too. (And remember how many Americans are armed.)
The police officers are literally in a position where they have to evaluate
each move you make in (I'd guess) about half a second. If they shoot when they
shouldn't, it may destroy their career. If they don't shoot when they should,
they may die.

I don't know, but I suspect that Australians are much less likely to shoot at
or otherwise attack police officers...

~~~
vacri
I agree with you in that part of the issue is the armed populace in the US
(Australia is very much an unarmed populace, and always has been; ignore most
of what you hear about the 1996 gun bans from anyone). Another part of the
issue is the 'us vs them' attitude that appears to be more prevalent in US
policing (and in US politics in general). In contrast, the UK's police tries
to follow the Peelian Principles, which are designed to avoid the 'us vs them'
mentality.

For my money, I'd rather have a population without guns, if it means we don't
have to be scared of the people we hire to keep our cities orderly. The armed
population in the US doesn't seem to be rising up against government
transgressions there any more than the unarmed population does here, so it
doesn't seem like the rationale for amendment #2 holds water.

------
FourSigma
These guys seem to make a decent living.

[https://data.cityofchicago.org/Administration-
Finance/Curren...](https://data.cityofchicago.org/Administration-
Finance/Current-Employee-Names-Salaries-and-Position-Title/xzkq-xp2w)

------
moron4hire
How long before people start defending them, "It's just a few bad apples"? And
I won't hold my breath waiting for them to remember the full phase is "a few
bad apples spoils the barrel."

~~~
ceejayoz
The "it's just a few bad apples" excuse is especially egregious, as bad apples
need to be disposed with rapidly before they rot the rest of the batch.

Farmers who encounter a bad apple don't shrug and say "eh, there'll always be
bad apples, nothing we can do". It's really weird how what should be a saying
supporting police reform got twisted into something promoting indifference to
abuse.

------
mgleason_3
I look at the comment from the Police Union and cant help wondering why there
is no public outcry to:

    
    
      Outlaw public employee Unions?

------
a3n
> “How they determine that it’s purposely caused damages, I’d like to know,”
> Angelo said last month. “How they can figure out what is mechanical or what
> is human error, I’d like to know.”

How video uploads significantly increase after the change in policy, with the
same equipment and people, I'd like to know.

------
oliv__
I just watched L.A Confidential a couple of days ago. All of this sounds
awfully too similar.

------
ccvannorman
Citizens, get some police suppression/accountability laws on the fucking
ballot. The only people who will vote against police suppression laws are
police. It's time to stop this bullshit.

------
nxzero
Chicago has a long history of wide spread willingness within its government to
act criminally in return for personal gain. Until Chicago itself is feed up
with it, nothing will change.

------
c3534l
So in even the most extreme, overly generous estimation of plausible "errors"
a person could make, we're talking about a police force that is around 40%
corrupt?

------
mtgx
Just a few bad apples...that have long spoiled the whole barrel.

------
mgleason_3
Look at the comments from the union rep. at the end of the story. Why is there
no call from the public to:

    
    
      Outlaw public employee unions?

~~~
thatswrong0
You're getting downvoted, but I think this is a legitimate question to ask, at
least about police unions. There are many serious problems with public sector
unions. I'd like to point to the financial situations (unfunded pension
liability related) of California and Illinois as prime examples of such
problems.

------
odk
From the wise words of N.W.A - Fuck da police!!!

------
infinite8s
I bet a simple classifier on all these HN anecdotes could pinpoint the race of
the posters to within 99% accuracy.

------
digitalneal
Google Jon Burge if you think this isn't embedded into the culture of Chicago.

------
awqrre
maybe all police officers should have to record audio and video and do a live
broadcast while on duty (someone has to make sure their equipment is working
properly)...

------
malloreon
if you destroy evidence, you should be found guilty of the crime itself as if
you'd conspired in committing it, and get the maximum sentence.

------
agumonkey
Seems like separation of power needs to reach further.

------
mirascarvalone
comment

------
ej3
Why is this the top post on hacker news? What does this have to do with
anything other than anecdotal, hysterical media BS?

~~~
entropicmind
I'm just speculating but I'd say that with the recent death of Ian Murdock and
how that situation played out, tensions are high between the HN community and
the police in America.

~~~
trophycase
Yeah, great. A bunch of tech nerds and programmers commenting on a job where
your safety is constantly on the line and you have to make split second
decisions and you're under enormous stress and there is no black and white.
This board is so anti-police it's just disgusting.

~~~
Aloha
I work in an industry that supports public safety.

Yes, being a police officer is dangerous, but their safety is not /constantly/
on the line - yeah, maybe once a day, maybe a couple times a day, an officer
is going to have to make a choice that could endanger them - its not every
second of every day.

The cameras in the end are supposed to protect the officer as much as the
citizens, it makes the officers accountable, as well as provides backup for
their version of events. Now I get the desire to not be recorded all the time,
no one wants a surveillance state - but when the methods of redress for a
corrupt officer are so few, body cameras are a reasonable precaution in the
eyes of the public.

HN is generally anti-authority, and right now, I can of very little visible
authority wise than the police, so right now the police are there as a focus
point.

------
sbkjabklvlag
That police have the emotional and intellectual maturity of children wouldn't
be so bad if they didn't also wantonly kill innocent people largely without
consequence.

Just another fine example of the American police state, but I'm sure some
fascist can explain away.

~~~
mapt
Maturity?

You see this as a _prank_?

I think you're on the wrong foot here. The premise of the cameras was not that
they were there for decorative effect as some sort of symbol to be vandalized.

I see it as a majority of the Chicago police force destroying evidence and
equipment necessary to investigate their actions. This is open rebellion with
the intent to escape justice - though for what crime specifically we may never
know.

Any proveably "deliberate" tampering should end in a firing, revocation of
pension, and then court case brought against them. Any deliberate tampering
during which the officer sustains a complaint against them? Enter this into
presumptive evidence against the officer and recommend prosecution. We started
monitoring the officer because it turns out they can't be trusted as much as
we thought - slipping our monitoring and destroying our property is an overtly
hostile act, the same as openly slitting the tires of an Internal Affairs
agent in the process of investigating the officer.

To deter it in the future: ramp up the random checks (you did have random
checks... right? I should be able to pick a random time and download footage)
and enter in punitive fines for poorly maintained or operated cameras; Raise
salary slightly to make it budget-neutral, but pay for prompt repair first.

