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New York City Police Department Commissioner James P. O'Neill suspended the use of some bodycam devices "effective immediately" after one of the city's cameras exploded over the weekend.
The NYPD said it was made "aware of a possible product defect" on Saturday when an officer said his Vievu model LE-5 camera caught fire. The officer removed the device before it exploded, and no injuries were reported.
"Last night, an officer retrieved a body-cam for deployment on a midnight tour and noticed there was smoke exiting from the bottom portal and immediately removed it," the NYPD said in a statement. "After it was safely removed, the device exploded."
Investigators said "the incident revealed a potential for the battery inside the camera to ignite," according to the statement.
[...] "Out of an abundance of caution, the Police Commissioner has directed that the continued use and distribution of the LE-5 model cameras be suspended effective immediately," the statement said. "All officers assigned LE-5 cameras were instructed to immediately remove the cameras and bring them back to their commands."
Source: https://abcnews.go.com/US/york-police-department-halts-bodycams-explodes/story?id=58658403
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday October 22 2018, @07:44PM (1 child)
It kinda is: In many states, the standard for ordinary people to use deadly force is that a reasonable person in this situation would believe that they or another person faced a deadly threat, whereas for cops to use deadly force the standard is that that particular cop believed (reasonably or not) that they faced a deadly threat.
You might notice the problem here: Even if nobody among the cops, prosecutors, and judges are the slightest bit crooked, it's basically impossible to prove in court what somebody believed several months ago when an incident took place. Evidence like "the cop had no reason whatsoever to think the guy he shot was carrying a gun" or "even the cop's partner thought he was in no way justified" are irrelevant to this standard, because the standard is what was going on in the cop's own head.
There was a fairly recent Supreme Court case where a guy was acquitted of shooting a cop because the cops didn't announce themselves as police so the homeowner thought he was dealing with a gang of armed robbers and responded accordingly. However, some factors in this case that might not always be present included that the cops had screwed up the home invasion in a bunch of other ways legally speaking, the guy who did the shooting was white, and he stopped shooting when the cops announced themselves to be police.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday October 23 2018, @04:48PM
But note, it had to go all the way to the Supreme Court to get there while if a cop shoots someone, it rarely gets to court at all.