The violence that erupted in Ferguson — as well as the police shooting that started it — has refueled 
the debate about body cameras on police officers, including in Miami-Dade, where the mayor and commission have set $1 million aside in this year’s tight budget to equip 500 county cops with video recorders worn on their vests.
Ladra is okay with that, principally because it not only protects rowdy teenagers and lead foot drivers from overzealous officers, but it could protect cops from lying opportunists who just make stuff up.
“If that officer had a camera on, those things that are happening in Ferguson, wouldn’t be happening,” Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos “Cry Wolf” Gimenez told the boys on The Gray Zone radio show Tuesday morning, referring to the violence that erupted in Missouri Monday after the grand jury decision not to indict Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson, who shot and killed Michael Brown, 18, under arguably questionable circumstances.
“We would have known exactly what transpired between Mr. Brown and that officer and we wouldn’t be going through this,” Gimenez explained. “That is why I a very keen on that and am going to continue to make sure our police officers are on the cutting edge of technology to protect them, the police officers.
“Body cameras will save a community from these issues. They will demonstrate with visual evidence exactly what transpired between a police officer and a subject,” he said. “In every case where we’ve had this kind of violence, of demonstrations, its always been a case where witnesses say one thing and police say something else or there is evidence that says that maybe what the officer is saying was not true.
“I was here during the McDuffie riots. Everybody knows what happened here in the 1980s,” said Gimenez, who Ladra thinks was a city of Miami fireman at the time four Miami cops were acquitted in the beating death of Arthur McDuffie.
“I saw it firsthand. If we had had a camera then, (A) Mr. McDuffie would be alive today and (B) we would not have had had to suffer I think it was $1 billion of damage and… I think we had close to 20 people who were killed.”
Gimenez stressed that body cameras protect good cops and bad cops. “If you are a police officer that’s inclined to do something against procedure, now that you have a body camera, you will say, ‘No I can’t do this.’ And I’m not saying it’s happened.” Yeah, mayor, you kinda did. But we’ve seen it happen.
More likely, he said, “there is restraint by the subjects themselves who now they know they are being recorded.” He offered statistics that show that body cameras reduce complaint
s by 80 percent and that among the complaints that continue, 93% end up sustaining the officer’s story (although I think that later one is the clearance rate for IA cases now anyway).
Ladra’s own research shows that the effect on complaints is, indeed, very significant. One of the only studies, using the Rialto, CA, Police Department in 2012, showed that even with only half the patrol officers wearing cameras on any given shift, there was an 88 percent drop in the number of all complaints filed compared to the 12 months before the study. They went from 24 complaints to three.
Use of force incidents were also cut by more than half — from 61 to 25 in the same compared time periods.
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Wait! $1 million for 500 officers, so that comes down to $2000 per cop. HD 1080P Infrared Wide Angle Police Body Camera is only $299.99, which I’m sure they’ll get a better price for 500 cameras. After some basic math it adds up to $160,494.65 w/tax. Nothing against the Police Department, I’m just questioning how the “CRY WOLF’S CREW” came up with that Dollar amount.
FOOD FOR THE THOUGHT.
Yes. Let’s use the mayor and his staff as the pilot program. It greatly reduces the cost of the experiment.
500 cameras almost assures that the beast will be fed for a long time with additional expenses tagged on.
Body cams for everyone! Why stop at the chiefs of staff? Let’s equip department directors with them. All procurement officers. And the union leaders, too. Fair is fair.
I won’t ask for anything I’m not willing to do myself. In fact, I am putting a little black body cam on my Santa’s list!
Or better yet… yo, Taser International people… why don’t you equip Ladra with your best collar/video recorder and we can post footage — “brought to you by Taser International” — as a way to show the world what a great idea this is?
Little brother is watching, too.
Love, Ladra
Carlos Gimenez should lead by example. He should wear a body camera. Think how many crimes will be avoided? For the really dumb lobbyists who offer him a bribe(s) on camera think how easy it will be to prosecute them? Yes. Yes.
Gordo….didnt you run around with a camera all over the place when you ran for Mayor in Hialeah?? Why don’t we just put cameras inside everyone’s home so we can monitor what they do?
Pedrito I just remembered who you are! You are the hair stylist who used to dye Mayor Carlos Hernandez’s hair at Yoyito’s house! Mi hermano I wish I had a video of that scene with Carlos running around the house with jet black hair dye applied to his head and a towel wrapped around his neck while he talked on the phone. Buddy I just saw him on TV a couple of days ago and his grey roots are showing! Get with it Pedrito! Lol
Cameras don’t lie but the surrounding narrative sure can..
In Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book, David and Goliath he goes back and reviews what is arguably the most famous photograph in the history of the American civil rights movement . AP photographer’s Bill Hudsons photograph of a black teenage protester being set up on by a police dog in Birmingham, the summer of 1963.. It is widely credited as the turning point in the civil rights movement.
It turns out none of we think we see actually happened.
The teenager is not a poor protester but a guy named Walther Gadsden, a middle class teenager and only a bystander who came to watch the protest. He was actually from a conservative family that owned two newspapers sharply critical of King.. What’s more he raised dogs and was fully aware how to handle them. He is not grabbing the officer while passively letting the dog attack as it appears, but steadying himself on the cop and bringing his knee into the dogs head, breaking the dog’s jaw.. and lastly the whole demonstration had not been called by King is a peaceful protest but race baiting exercise specifically orchestrated to get pictures of Bull Connor’s cops beating black children.. a strategy he was widely criticized for even at the time.
But it only took 50 years for the real story to come out.
While the mayor is at it, he should buy 27 additional body cameras- one for himself, 13 for our sitting commissioners and 13 for their chiefs of staff. This will also be very beneficial for our community. By wearing these cameras the mayor will no longer be able to meet in secrecy with Jorge Luis Lopez, Rafael Garcia Toledo, his own son, etc., and be briefed about what sort of county contracts he should be pushing at the BCC. Imagine how interesting that conversation between the mayor and his campaign manager Al Lorenzo about absentee ballots may have sounded like back in 2012! By wearing the cameras the commissioner chiefs of staff, more commonly referred to as “the gate keepers” or carriers of messages between commissioners to see how their votes stack, will no longer be able to meet with consultants and lobbyists and seal deals for our commissioners. At last, by wearing cameras, our commissioners will not be able to meet, compare notes and violate Florida’s Sunshine law without repercussion. Come to think of it, forcing every public official to wear cameras would also save money since we will no longer have to pay unnecessary salaries to SA Katherine Fernandez-Rundle, COE Joseph Centorino and OIG Mary Cagle. Now imagine what kind of videos we would be privy to if those who are trusted to eradicate corruption but refuse to do so for political reasons could be recorded during the course of their daily encounters with prominent members of this community! And since we are going back to the days of McDuffie, how about if we had video archives of Commissioners Miriam Alonso, Pedro Reboredo, Jimmy Burke, Arthur Teele, etc. caught stealing while in office! Still going on but these days no one is watching. The list is endless! Yes cameras for the police but make sure that our politicians, the real thieves, are wearing them as well.