Police need to be held more accountable
Every eight hours, a cop kills someone. Two hundred ninety people have been killed by cops this year, and in many instances, the circumstances of a given incident do not add up to what officers claim in their reports.
Recently in New Jersey, a man named Phillip White was killed while in police custody. At the time of his death, he was wearing handcuffs, and he died after officers allowed their police dog to attack him —delivering a fatal bite to his neck.
After the murders of Eric Garner and Micheal Brown, many Americans have demanded accountability from police forces on a national level. The idea of body cameras for officers on duty quickly went from a thought to a funded project with President Obama allocating $263 million to begin supplying the devices.
This leaves a very important question to be addressed – if an officer is wearing a camera they control, how can they be trusted to use it properly? It is imperative that police officers are outfitted with automated devices they do not control.
If an officer is in a situation where they must draw a weapon, their device should be active. Every single time an officer has to use any type of force, their device should automatically begin capturing everything.
It is incredibly unfortunate that those in charge of protecting Americans so frequently take advantage of their power, and are often held above the law. It has to stop, and the only way it will stop is by holding police accountable by having the evidence to do so.
The footage obtained through the use of automated cameras should be securely and automatically sent to a location that officers are unable to access – they should have absolutely no control over the footage. Transparency is the only feasible solution to a problem like this.
Officers who display hyper aggressive behavior have no place in any police force – officers should be trained to know how to handle situations, and should handle them appropriately no matter what.
This is not a problem that will go away. It has to be taken care of before more people die at the hands of cops who know they can get away with murder.
