The use of body cams on police and other law enforcement is one of the biggest public illusions in the battle of police brutality since the words “To Protect and Serve” first appeared on patrol vehicles.

Welcome to the third installment, and another lesson learned from the shooting of Justine Damond by the Somali Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor.

The public demand for police body cameras has increased at a fevered pace. This is largely due to the public’s new awareness of how the police operate. Namely, how law officers routinely “embellish” their stories after an incident of brutality.

On the surface, body cameras seem to be an excellent way to hold police accountable for their actions. In practice, this has been shown to be extremely far from the truth.

To start, we will stay with the topic of Mohamed Noor shooting Justine Damond. And here is just one lesson on how law enforcement body cams really work…and how they don’t.

Body cams were reported to have been worn during the night Mohamed Noor and his partner responded to the call of a possible assault taking place in an alley behind Justine Damond’s home. However, their individual body cams were reported to have not been turned on at any time during the incident. That may or may not be true. (Shortly, we will explore the possibility that they actually were on. For now, let’s continue with the assumption that they were never activated.)

This leads to lesson number one as to why body cams won’t work to decrease police brutality. Sometimes officers simply choose to never activate their cameras.

The reason we believe that the body cams may have been turned on is circumstantial. Multiple times in different reports in this case we have heard “…the dashcam video did not capture the event…” This leads us to believe that the dash cam was turned on. It also reminds us of the fact that the dash cam does not turn itself on. It is activated in a number of ways. Abrupt stops, speeds reaching a certain threshold and when the patrol vehicle’s lights are activated. Another way is when the officers manually activate the dash camera.

Multiple reports have indicated that the patrol vehicle’s flashing lights, as well as the headlights, were off as it crept through the alley. Clearly the dash cam was not activated by the flashing lights. Traveling through an alley also does not require high speeds or abrupt stops. This leave the obvious….that the officers very likely activated the dash cam manually. If so, why wouldn’t they have activated their body cams that are departmentally required to be on in these cases. Or did they?

There very well may be video of the incident, but when an officer is in the wrong, here is how it works. The narrative is almost always as if there was no video. You will hear that “The body cams were not turned on”, “The dash cams weren’t working that day” and other similar lines that have become commonplace for departments who choose to keep the imagery secret. This, along with erasing critical frames from recordings has become commonplace.

The only reason police like any video at all is because it can be used to exonerate them when it shows they acted appropriately. They routinely use it against a citizen when it shows the complainant is lying. When it can be used against the police, it routinely disappears.

When video shows an officer is in the wrong, it will almost always “not exist.” It will be erased or kept hidden to the best of their ability. (Case in point: When the Chicago police department kept footage secret for 400 days before being forced by court order to release it. When finally released, that video clearly showed the wrongful murder of Laquan McDonald as he was shot 16 times at point blank range. Many of the shots were fired after Laquan lay on the ground already incapacitated.)

Any time a department tells the public that there is no video available, there is rarely any reason to take that at face value. Lack of police dash cam and body cam footage is a great illusion. It allows the offending police department to dictate the public narrative.

Those who think atrocities such as the one we are discussing will diminish as soon as all cops across the country start wearing cameras, can save their breath.

Until next time, good luck and stay safe!