Going To Prison For Failing To Turn On A Body Camera

So as we start the show , be thinking about what state you think that is .

I'm so honored that you're here and I wanted to discuss a story that I ran across yesterday that really no one's really talking about , but it should certainly , since shivers up any spine of anybody that is in law enforcement or cares about law enforcement or cares about public safety , and it's a law that is designed to throw cops in prison for literally potentially

making just a mistake or a human error or under stress , not turning on a body camera . Now I want to give a little bit of historical context to this law .

Everybody knows that after Ferguson , the talk of body cameras really became popular to the point to where you have about 85% of police officers around the country are filming all their encounters for the most part that they have , and , of course , if we're not filming it , other people typically are . So we're not concerned about body cameras .

Body cameras have significantly helped their profession in many ways , but it didn't help the profession in the way that some wanted , because you might got to remember that after Ferguson a legal , justified shooting where a robbery suspect tried to kill a police officer that's not me saying it was legally justified Every investigative body , including the DOJ , said that

and we everybody talked about body cameras after that and so we all sort of ran and got body cameras . And you got to remember the research behind that . There was a small department in California , I want to say . They put body cameras on about 30 patrol officers . They ran this for about six months and they found that complaints went down .

So the narrative was that police act better with body cameras . Now that's a pretty faulty study because there's a number of reasons why the complaints may have gone down . It may have been cops acted better , or it may have been that citizens knew that they were being filmed and they couldn't lie when they complain .

But we really don't know because the study was pretty faulty . And of course we have a recent study out of Washington DC and I'll put this in the show notes that pretty much said body cameras have little to do with officer behavior , although they have a lot to do with suspect behavior oftentimes , which is probably what occurred in that first study .

And that study out of DC was an actual , real study . They ran it a thousand cops and put a body camera on them A thousand cops , they didn't put a body camera on all doing the same job . They ran it for 18 months , so it's a much longer research period .

And they found , when it came to the data on arrest and use of force and complaints and all these metrics , that there was little to no change whatsoever between the officers with body cameras and the officers without body cameras . Now , that came to no surprise to anybody that

works in law enforcement because you know , for the most part it's a pretty prep professional group of individuals and that a lot of times these narratives out there are just not even true or close to the truth . But the people that demanded body cameras didn't exactly get what they wanted .

They wanted to get officers on film doing things wrong , or they can complain , prosecute , you name it . And out of all of the millions of hours of body camera footage we get in a day , really what do you have ? And you don't have much . Every once in a while you'll see one that comes around and you go .

That's not good , but for the most part they've been . So I say they , the people that are anti-police , have been so adamant about wanting cops to get in trouble . You know , half the things that they're talking about are just plain outline .

They'll throw out a body camera footage that's just out of context or whatever it is and they'll try to accuse the officer or something . But more times than not , body cameras clear law enforcement .

It gives context and situation and it's been really beneficial and I think that's why we're seeing bills like this today and I'm going to read this proposed bill to you and I'll tell you where it comes from .

It's going to surprise you , but in this state there's a current felony law that if you , if you , impair an investigation by destroying or falsifying evidence , it's a felony . Now everybody understands that you can't destroy evidence and you can't . You know whether it's video evidence or paper evidence during investigation . Evidence can't be destroyed .

That's an existing law in this state . Well , they are attempting to do an addition to that law and it's now serious . The law was proposed a year ago but now it's in the Criminal Justice Subcommittee .

It's going through the process in this state and here's what the law says and you'll I'll link up the article here in the show notes , but it should spook anyone that is concerned about what is occurring in communities today . Here's what it says the bill adds to the above felony , so it's adding to the current law .

It's intended for everybody to not destroy evidence If law enforcement officers with the intent to obstruct justice turn off , disable fell to turn on or operate a law enforcement recording device , including a law enforcement body camera , in any manner that prevents the creation of evidence . They are facing three to 15 years in prison and a $10,000 fine .

Now you could read that law and you could say well , listen , there has to be an intent to obstruct justice . Well , who determines that intent ? Is the mere act of not turning the body camera on ? Is that the intent ? Or what if an officer says I forgot to turn it on ? What if an officer is in a high stress situation ?

And because we don't train turning on body cameras when people are shooting at you , they don't . They fail to turn on the body camera . So it's very vague for a reason it's vague because they want to throw cops in prison for simply doing their job . Now are there cases of law enforcement purposely not turned on a body camera ?

Probably the Memphis incident , from what I can recall , was probably one of them . Their body cameras were turned off but the surveillance camera picked up some of that footage . But to say you're going to go to prison for not turning it on for anything , because it is failing to create evidence that's different than evidence existing .

That's what they're trying to do in this law . This law exists for evidence that exists in an investigation and somebody destroys the evidence . This addition is the destruction of potential evidence . So you can see the problem here , and I don't care what the intent is , because the intent may be . Just you know the intent may be .

We just want to capture as much footage as possible , and if an officer purposely does this to avoid this , this ABCD , whatever it is , that's fine . But , as often the case , your intent of a law and the actual application of that law is completely different .

Do you think the intent of the law in California to decriminalize shoplifting , so to speak , turned out the way they wanted it ? No crime skyrocketed , businesses closed , and now that's the thing . The legislature's going in and they're making a new law to put the law back on the books , and of course that's in the process . But you get my point .

I don't care what the person may say that proposed this law .

How the law is applied is what matters , and to me , when you read that statement , let me read it to you again the intent to obstruct justice , to turn off disable fell , to turn on or operate a law enforcement recording device , including body camera . There's a comment between each one of those .

There's not a clause that says all this has to happen with intent . This is what it says . The intent to obstruct justice comma , to turn off comma , disable comma . Those are separate actions . So you could also read that to say I don't have to prove intent .

If you don't turn on a body camera footage , you're going to jail for 15 years , regardless of where you think it is . The fact that we don't know is the problem . The fact that someone would try to do this is the problem , because let me tell you what the ramifications of this are .

In the state of Tennessee , which is where this law is , you can say goodbye to public safety because two things are going to occur . First , no one's going to want to go to work in the state of Tennessee . Why would they ?

In fact , I've already I've only warned against one police department in this country to never work for , and I hesitated to write it because that's not my nature . I believe in the glass half full , so to speak , that leadership can change everything . But I saw enough in Minneapolis to say you can't work there , it's too dangerous .

They're trying to throw people in prison for doing their job . I lined it out . I'll put that in the show notes . But if this passes , this makes that look like nothing .

It's in the law books from the legislature saying yeah , regardless of what happens , you may have acted completely right , you may have been within the bounds of the Constitution , it may have been a completely legal stop , but if you did not turn on that body camera , you're going to jail .

Now you're going to hear that and you're going to think to yourself Travis , that is crazy , that's not going to happen . Really , you want to work in that environment thinking surely they won't do that . And so that really brings to question why they're doing this in the first place . Because there hasn't been anything lined out on what the problem is .

Is this a huge problem in the state of Tennessee that cops don't use body cameras ? That sounds like a leadership management problem to me and a policy problem , not a law . And so you're going to have one . No one's going to ever want to work in the state of Tennessee . That's just straight and straight , plain and simple .

I don't know I don't know how else you say it . Why would you do that , unless you don't like your freedom and number two , the existing officers that don't immediately leave , that maybe they're there for pension reasons or whatever . They're going to do as little as they possibly have to do .

Now the problem with that is is this profession and this line of work is unique in the fact that you never know what may happen . I mean , you could be sitting in your car and somebody ambush you right . Well , are you going to remember to turn on your body camera when the gun fight starts ? Right , and we all see the problems with this .

I'm not worried about the day to day interaction where you know your heart your heart beats 85 and you remember to turn on the body camera . It's not a big deal , but I'm talking about a dynamic situation where you really need a body camera because it's liable to be a used to force situation . That happens split second . You got to make split second decisions .

Are you really turning on the body camera ? Oftentimes you are , but there are going to be times when it just doesn't happen , and because that is human nature and that's human performance factors .

Folks and we study this in all professions we understand what human performance factors are , we understand what impacts it , but in law enforcement , we're literally passing laws , knowing that this occurs and knowing we'll be able to throw cops in prison when it happens , whether they meant to or they don't .

And then , if the determination isn't in 10 or not , who gets to decide that ? And this is really unbelievable , to be honest with you . And why do I bring it up ? Yeah , maybe it doesn't pass , but I bring it up because it's attempted , and these legislators do not make decisions in a bubble , just like cops do . They talk to other cops .

These politicians talk to other politicians , and I can guarantee you that Tennessee will not be the last state that tries this , and so that's why I'm discussing it . But I'm also discussing it because , oddly enough , as I've said more often than not , no national police organizations are talking about this .

It drives me absolutely crazy that we have these large organizations that are , say , there for you , and when things like this happen , when we need them , they are deathly silent . And so that is a huge problem in this profession .

It's a huge problem with leadership , and we have to do something different than that , because look at what has been happening day in and day out in the last few years , and nobody seems to care . But I know you do , that's why you're listening . So what do you do about this ? Where should a leader do about this ?

Well , first thing the leaders in Tennessee ought to be doing is they ought to be speaking out right now . You don't wait for the law to pass . You need to be communicating with your public and your citizens right now on why this is a problem . You need to take reporters out to a simulated situation and see how well they do under stress .

You need to be educating your public of how wrong this is , because if you wait till it passes , it's hard to go back and do that , and so they need to be coming out strong on this , even to the point of maybe you won't be able to have an existing police department if this passes .

There are small departments right now that have gone under because there are states that passed mandatory body cameras . They couldn't afford it , so these small departments had to just fold and the county took over . That's been happening , and so this is serious enough to where people that lead these organizations in this state .

They better be standing up for their people right now , and they need to be very vocal about this . Now . How many will ? Not many ? We see that time and time again , everybody is worried about me , myself and I and folks . That's not a leadership . Oh , I'm worried about my pension or my job or my mayor's gonna think . That's not a leadership . That's cowardice .

Folks , leadership is ugly , it's bloody , it's tough , it's stressful . When you take care of other people and you commit to serve others , you will sacrifice . I don't know where we got in our head that this leadership is this quasi managing numbers and budgets and stuff . No , no , it's people . And when you defend people on what's right , there could be consequences .

And you know what ? If you're a leader , that's okay . I am so amazed at how weak some people seem to be in a profession where we're clearly not weak . We're some of the strongest and bravest out there . But when it comes to issues like this , the fact that we can be silent about it drives me crazy . But we can't be silent here .

I know there are people I rub wrong . Why are you talking about that ? Why are you talking about this ? Why'd you say it like that ? Well , my response is is it true or not ? That is my barometer . Is what I'm saying true or not ? Why , if I'm telling the truth , why is that somehow controversial ? You tell me ?

To me it's controversial to try to pass a law like this . It's controversial to lie . It's controversial to promulgate a false narrative about policing . That should be what's controversy . We have leaders that are partaking in this and we'll get into all that in the months to come .

So I wanted to just briefly bring this to you . The state of Tennessee is a great state . Some great cities there , some great police officers there . There's even a few good firemen , believe it or not , in that state . I love that state .

But this bill will destroy the state of Tennessee in due time , because no one in their right mind will go to work anywhere where , if you fail to do something and you're asked to do it under intense stress or scrutiny and you fail to do it just once you're facing prison .

So be aware of that , be concerned about that , pray for the state of Tennessee and if you live in the state of Tennessee , contact me . I mean , I will help you with this , but you cannot be silent .

There has to be a response to something this outrageous , and the fact that this did not get immediately destroyed out of that legislative body should be concerning , because it is now into its criminal justice committee , where I'm sure the debate will begin , but who's gonna be talking about that ? Yay or nay for that , and so keep that in mind .

Thanks for listening , and just remember lead on and stay courageous .