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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

Why are so many police dashcam videos silent? [dnainfo.com]

Chicago Police Department officers stashed microphones in their squad car glove boxes. They pulled out batteries. Microphone antennas got busted or went missing. And sometimes, dashcam systems didn’t have any microphones at all, DNAinfo Chicago has learned.

Police officials last month blamed the absence of audio in 80 percent of dashcam videos [dnainfo.com] on officer error and “intentional destruction.”

A DNAinfo Chicago review of more than 1,800 police maintenance logs sheds light on the no-sound syndrome plaguing Police Department videos — including its most notorious dashcam case.

Maintenance records of the squad car used by Jason Van Dyke, who shot and killed Laquan McDonald [dnainfo.com], and his partner, Joseph Walsh, show months-long delays for two dashcam repairs, including a long wait to fix “intentional damage.”

Vest- and dashboard cameras have been pushed as a technological fix for the epidemic of police use of excessive force.

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