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By Greg Meyer, Police1 columnist
Sponsored by TASER

For years, the best sergeants have told you, “Always assume someone is videotaping you while you do your work.” Only because someone often is!

Whether it’s a citizen, a news crew, a business security video system, or your own in-car video equipment, police officers and sheriff’s deputies are frequently “caught on tape,” for better or for worse.

For a long time, most of us rebelled against the idea that the public—especially the public that sits on the jury that decides if you did right or wrong—doesn’t take our word for it anymore. No doubt some of you still openly detest that lack of trust. But, it has become the reality, no thanks to some among our ranks who embarrassed us all and got caught in lapses of integrity.

Lots of us accept the idea that the best thing we can do is tape ourselves, whether audio or video. One bad headline about your agency, even if the headline isn’t true, wipes out a hundred positive stories about how you saved a life, rescued someone from danger, or coached for the community softball league.

Some departments actually issue mini-tape recorders and require personnel to use them on all traffic stops and investigative stops. The digital type of equipment can be downloaded via USB to a regular computer, then burned to a CD.

And of course we’re all aware of the in-car video cameras many agencies use. They capture drunk drivers, assaults on officers, and your use of force. Always good to show that you acted professionally and properly applied your training to a difficult, fast-breaking situation.

And now we even have the TASER Cam to capture the resistance of the suspect while you’re trying to get him (or her) under control. What better evidence of the suspect’s resistance? Serves you well in criminal and civil courts, as well as during administrative review and citizen complaint processes.

In my opinion, one of the beauties of the TASER Cam is that as long as you have a sufficient number of personnel on the scene on digital camera, any back-up officer with a TASER Cam can play “movie director” and capture the incident—even if it’s not a TASER use of force incident. You can video the drunk who’s cursing your mother. The domestic violence suspect’s enraged attitude and words and attempts to kick you right after you handcuffed him. The bystanders who are on the verge of interfering with the arrest. The possibilities are endless.

I carried a mini-tape recorder when I worked the streets in uniform and as a detective in the 70’s and 80’s. Some of the stuff was amusing. Rarely did I need it as “complaint insurance” in those days, but it sure came in handy as a detective. There are still people in prison that I put on tape immediately after their arrest, capturing their spontaneous statements before they had time to get their act together and make up the big lie. Or proving that I gave them the required Miranda warnings before asking them incriminating questions.

Come to think of it, even catching the crook in the big lie on tape was always a good thing. Tape recorded evidence drove their defense attorneys nuts! It greatly restricts their ability to slip and slide, blow smoke, and change the subject.

These days you really do need “complaint insurance.” In some jurisdictions, courts have decided that it is not a crime to make a false complaint against an officer. Audio and video equipment provides that insurance if your heart and mind are in the right place as you do your job.

And guess what. It’s even a great training tool. Officers who sit down with their supervisors and review some of the taped transactions learn, because of what comes out of their own mouths, how to speak more professionally with people they stop. This alone prevents needless complaints.

When I commanded the Valley Traffic Division of the LAPD for five years, with the help of my lieutenants and sergeants we managed to persuade the vast majority of our officers to carry mini-tape recorders and use them on every stop. At least a couple of times a month, those tapes would completely clear an officer who was accused of wrong-doing. And, in several cases, officers civilly sued the people making the false complaint, and the officers won monetary judgments.

In one of my favorite “tape cases,” an LAPD motorcycle officer made a “routine traffic stop.” (Not really, because as you know—or should—there is no such thing.) The violator tried to run over the officer. The chase was on.

A few miles and one car crash later, an officer-involved shooting occurred. The officer was taken to the station, provided an attorney, and interviewed by the detectives.

Hours later, when the officer finally got home and took off his uniform and cleaned out his shirt pockets, he found his mini-tape recorder with the switch in the “on” position. He had completely forgotten that he had switched on his tape recorder as a matter of routine as he approached the violator’s vehicle at the beginning of the incident.

The officer immediately called in to the night watch commander, who notified the detectives, who went out and collected the evidence.

As it turned out, the officer’s tape recorder had captured the entire incident on tape, including the pursuit, including the shooting, including the aftermath. I vividly recall the feeling of satisfaction, as this officer’s captain, when the detectives told me that everything the officer had described during his post-shooting interview was verified as truthful by the contents of the tape that he didn’t even realize was running.

What better evidence of the commands the officer gave the suspect while trying to make him surrender before shooting him?

I want to thank Deputy Commander Scott Noris from the Dallas Police Department, Reserve Battalion for the inspiration for this article. When he answered my request in August’s article to provide stories of sudden in-custody deaths, he mentioned how his personal mini-tape recording of a critical incident saved his buns, and probably saved the good citizens of Dallas a whole lotta money.

He has a great story. He has authorized me to pass this information along to you. Here are some compelling excerpts from his e-mail:

    The suspect had experienced a “cocaine episode” in his girlfriend’s apartment and ran out into the complex wildly swinging a baseball bat and yelling incoherently (sound familiar?). . . .

    I knew what had happened and immediately handcuffed him for everyone’s safety. Naturally, 30 seconds later, the suspect stopped breathing.

    What I did right was manage to remain calm as the paramedics . . . loaded him into the ambulance. For the nearly 20 years I’ve been on the Dallas Police Department, I’ve carried a micro cassette recorder (now a downloadable digital recorder) in my uniform shirt pocket, and I immediately turned it on. From there, I interviewed the good Samaritans, the bystanders and the suspect’s girlfriend and got it all on audio, including the moment in the ambulance when I called dispatch to send a field supervisor because the paramedics told me that the suspect was unresponsive and was going to die right there.

    That audio tape saved me and the Department a lot of problems. After the suspect was pronounced dead, I went down to our Crimes Against Persons Division to type up my internal statement. When I told the CAPERS sergeant that I’d recorded the entire incident, he listened to the first minute or two and said, “I don’t think you have a thing to worry about.” My Internal Affairs interview went the same way, and I was exonerated after the Medical Examiner’s report was complete. The Dallas County Grand Jury no-billed me as well.

    In fact, everything was so well-documented that to date no civil suit has been filed by the suspect’s family.

    My advice to all officers, for what it’s worth, is to carry a recorder (digital or tape) at all times, and turn it on---even during traffic stops. Not only does it avoid “he said/he said” internal affairs complaints, but is an added defense in case of an in-custody death.

Thanks, Scott. I couldn’t have said it any better.

But if I tried, it would be on tape!

(P.S. Please take a look at August’s article and send me more sudden in-custody death stories. Thanks . . . )

Capt. Greg Meyer (ret.)
Capt. Greg Meyer (ret.)

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