When a black man was fatally shot by police in Baton Rouge on Tuesday morning, the incident was captured in graphic detail by multiple cameras.
But, as The Wall Street Journal reports, none of that footage came from the two officers involved, since authorities say their lapel cameras became dislodged as they tried to subdue 37-year-old Alton Sterling outside the Triple S Food Mart in Baton Rouge.
The shooting, which was filmed by several bystanders, came after one of the officers appeared to kneel on Sterling and hold a gun to him. The incident shows the limitations of body cameras, even as cities scramble to outfit officers with the devices amid public outcry over police shootings.
The devices are meant to provide greater police transparency and accountability, but over the past several years, police across the country have encountered a litany of issues with body cameras—from officers refusing to activate them, to disputes over when footage should be publicly released, to technical malfunctions.
Meanwhile, citizens have taken to filming their own police encounters—sometimes live-streaming them in case phones are confiscated—compounding pressure on police to maintain official recordings.
“People will make a mistake if they think we can solve all these problems just by giving the cops a camera,” says Jim Bueermann, retired chief of the Redlands Police Department in California and president of the Police Foundation, a law enforcement research group. “In some cases, it creates other problems. This is not a panacea.”
The Baton Rouge Police Department began its body camera pilot program last fall. The department has been testing several types of cameras, but the officers involved in the shooting death of Sterling were wearing models made by Motorola Solutions, a relative newcomer to the body camera market.
The officers were wearing the Si500 model, which rolled out in October and combines a camera with a remote speaker and microphone for the officer’s radio. Motorola says in a statement that its engineers had been working with Baton Rouge police since the pilot project began.
The Wall Street Journal has the full story.
