SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
BUFFALO, N.Y. — Buffalo Police tell 2 On Your Side an Internal Affairs investigation is underway after an officer's rifle fell off a roof and onto a sidewalk during the St. Patrick's Day Parade on Sunday.
Pictures shared with WGRZ by Andrew Mavrogeorgis show the officer positioned on top of the building at 560 Delaware Avenue at Allen Street in downtown Buffalo. The rifle is perched on the edge, on top of a stand, a short distance from the officer. At some point, the rifle fell onto the sidewalk below, where people were walking about.
Another picture shows the officer peering over the ledge of the building at the rifle on the sidewalk below, while people gathered for the parade pass by.
A nearby officer was able to pick up the rifle and carry it to safety.
There's no word yet on if the officer will be disciplined, and there are no reports of any injuries.
Buffalo Police say the officer was on the roof conducting "overwatch" of the parade, a routine safety protocol at large events.
Click the link for pics.
Is the city of Buffalo hiring Florida Man for their police force?
Someone tell me again why we should trust the police.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 27, @03:40AM
I run into this dilemma at my accounting/auditing job. As I've mentioned before, I work for a private concessionaire at a US national park. Due to the weirdness of the business, there are multiple point of sales systems each with its own quirks. I won't go into details, but merely describe a basic dilemma - when a cashier/bartender/waiter reports sales, there are various approaches by department to how the sales are reported and how cash is handled - some parts are consistent, but other parts aren't. The ideal is that the worker counts out the extra money they've received and drops it without knowing what they should have received for cash. The idea is that they don't know (unless they've intentionally arranged it) whether their monies are over or under what they should be. So if they collect $20 too much by accident, they don't have knowledge of the excess and don't try to pocket the money. A couple of our systems can achieve this "blind drop" ideal, but other systems can't. And there's at least one case where it would be outright impossible due to how the business is conducted.
So I get to see some of the issues that can manifest. As described above, if a cashier counts out $100 and knows they're supposed to only drop $80, that creates a temptation to pocket the extra money, but it can also happen in reverse, if they count out $60 and know they're supposed to drop $80, they are tempted to drop $80. If you have someone who just is really bad at counting money, it's better to find that out right away and move them to a job that doesn't have cash handling rather than have them thrash for days on end adding and subtracting money in futile attempts to make their money right.
There are plenty of other problems that can come up which aren't addressed by such systems. It's merely a component of a whole.
So a blind drop can save a lot of drama, but not all.
In the same way, having a record that police can't review would be similar. It's a blind drop. They can't coordinate stories as easily because they don't know what the cameras recorded and thus, forms an incentive to be more honest. The drawback is that it removes an otherwise valuable investigative tool. For example, a police officer could just walk through a crime scene (before it is disturbed) and carefully study the footage (including sound) later at their leisure. Perhaps there was a note on the fridge or a comment made by a witness that was missed in the initial investigation.
My take is that an intermediate state would likely be most productive here (and definitely far more productive than no video at all!). The camera video (with necessary time stamping and such) is downloaded to a write-once store so that they can access (with logging of said access) for their work, but don't have the ability to change or delete the video. It also creates a subpoenable record for trial. They have the ability to alter their reports to fit the video, but they don't have the ability to alter the video. Non-blind video won't catch some defection, but it create a base level of evidence that is hard to corrupt. In exchange, they receive a powerful tool for recording evidence and strengthening the police officer's role as professional witness.
One would also need auditing of these records. Two particular problems: a police officer who routinely has malfunctions with their camera system (particularly being off or malfunctioning when it is convenient for the officer) and detecting when the camera video doesn't match what is claimed to have happened.
Going back to your general thing though, I agree that wearable cameras are a considerable improvement and I support their use. With the particular issue you mentioned, I think allowing officers to review their footage at will would be more valuable than blind dropping such data. Some compromise is caused, but it's still a pretty tough system to beat when implemented well.