Body cameras must be on

In that incident in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a police officer fatally shot an Australian woman, Justine Damond, who had called 911 to report a possible sexual assault near her home. Damond was shot by the officer in the passenger seat through the open window on the driver’s side, as she conversed with the driver.

According to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension which is investigating the incident, “Both officers were wearing body cameras, but the cameras were not turned on until after the shooting… The squad car camera also was not turned on.” Damond’s death is not the first controversial police shooting involving an officer who wore a body camera but failed to capture the critical footage. In a high-profile case, one of the Charlotte (North Carolina) police officers who fatally shot Keith Scott there last year failed to activate his body camera as soon as he responded to the situation, violating departmental policy.

Which begs the question: does the TT PS have an official policy on the use of body cameras by police officers? On the positive side, many police shootings have indeed been captured by body cameras. There is no doubt they can be useful but they have to be turned on. I can already hear a rogue officer saying he turned it off to go to the bathroom and forgot to turn it back on, hence the reason his questionable behaviour was not captured by his body camera.

In an interesting aftermath to the Damond incident, Minneapolis Police Chief Janee Harteau resigned less than a week after Damond was shot. Mayor Betsy Hodges said she asked Harteau to resign because “I’ve lost confidence in the chief ’s ability to lead us further — and from the many conversations I’ve had with people around our city, especially this week, it is clear that she has lost the confidence of the people of Minneapolis as well.” Any chance that something similar could ever happen in TT ?

NOEL KALICHARAN via email