“When San Francisco police raided journalist Bryan Carmody’s home last year, in a misguided (and illegal) search attempting to track down a leaker, none of the event was captured on police body camera.
This turns out to be by design. A newly released memo reveals that a lieutenant with the investigative services detail specifically told police at the scene, following a captain’s orders, that officers were not to use their body cameras for the operation. The only explanation provided in the two-paragraph memo was that the “footage could compromise the investigation.””
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” Body cameras, when properly and carefully implemented, are helpful tools for police transparency and accountability. But they’re used inconsistently. Sometimes officers individually decide to turn them off, but here we see leaders purposefully ordering police not to record an investigation. That’s a problem.”