Quote:
Originally Posted by Traum
The problem with police board reviews is, they are either conducted by the same police force, or if the case ends up being high profile, the PD in question will hire another supposedly reputable police big shot from a different PD, say the chief officer from a different municipality, to lead the investigation. At that point, you end up having someone from the police force conducting a review for another police force, and the public generally doesn't have very trust in that kind of process. The review will be considered as biased and preferential to the police.
Even when the court steps in, judges tend to side with the police more often, citing them as more "reputable" and "trust-worthy". Personally, I do not agree with this at all, and I view the police's side of the story as just exactly that -- a different side of the story that is not automatically more or less believable than the other.
For the benefit of the public and the police officers themselves, this is why I think wearable cameras (with audio) should become a standard issue item and that they get used when the officer is on duty. They still won't explain the rationale behind the action, and there is always room for people to exploit that loophole. But it will eliminate a major aspect of the guesswork.
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In the Robert Dziekański case, they investigated with Queens Counsel, not another PD. In the US it might be different, as the only other place I've seen another police department used in an investigation is in a certain Netflix documentary.
Also relevant to the police body camera discussion:
Do Police Body Cameras Really Work? - IEEE Spectrum
tl;dr
They sometimes work, sometimes don't. They don't know why. Even if the officer wears a camera part of the time, it's shown to reduce complaints of excessive force by 90%.