Oakland PD ‘Forgetting’ To Turn On Their Body-Mounted Cameras

There’s no shortcut: The only way police departments respond to the community is when the community rises up. Unfortunately, far too often, people think expressing your outrage online is equivalent to showing up at your town council meetings. It isn’t. Leaders will go as far as they think they can go without suffering public backlash: Relations between Oakland police and the city’s residents have never been good, which is one reason why the department issued body-mounted cameras to its officers last year. The goal was to increase accountability, which is important for a department that is facing a federal takeover this March. However, the above video, which shows several officers with their body-mounted cameras turned off – a departmental violation – is just the latest example of Oakland police officers not wanting any accountability.The video is also a clear demonstration of just how high tensions are between Oakland police and citizens. The video was produced by Jacob Crawford and journalist Ali Winston from footage obtained during the January 28th demonstration that included activists attempting to break into city hall. “When the cameras are turned on, you see a green light,” said Crawford, a longtime Cop Watch activist whom I wrote about in 2010 after he was assaulted for attempting to video record a cop.“When the cameras are turned off, they just look like a pager.”

Oakland PD ‘Forgetting’ To Turn On Their Body-Mounted Cameras

Posted by Breaking News Online on February 20, 2012. Filed under News, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.