Watching the Watchers Watchers Part II

The Eye received the following from retired APD Captain David Gilmore. It seems Kent Walz has now put the k'bash on Mr. Gilmore as well. So much for freedom of the press when your largest account is with the administration paying you right Ken and Jerry?

"APD's usage of the lapel cameras for the often stated purpose of transparency is simply out of control. According to the Journal's story(8-27-14) the officers are spending up to 20% of each shift ,uploading and logging footage they record.  An officer working an eight hour shift or 480 minutes minus 30 minutes for lunch is now down to 450 minutes to handle calls for service.  Of those 450 minutes we can subtract the 20% or 90 minutes and find the officer is now working only 360 minutes or 6 hours of an 8 hours shift. This means he/she is spending one and a half hours of not doing what he/she is on the streets to do, protect you and me.  For argument sake let us say that 380 officers work the  streets and the minimum pay for a Patrolman 1/C is $26.00 per hour.  An officer is now tspending 7 1/2 hours a week or 375 hours a year at the cost of $195 per week or $9,750 per year to care for his videos.  Applying the hours and costs to the 380 officers on a yearly basis we end up with APD mandating the officers to spend 142,000 hours a year and $3,705,000 on "transparency tapes".  To make matters worse these figures do not include the roughly 600 other sworn officers/supervisors/command personnel that are required to utilizes the video system nor the time and cost to retrieve them for the news media and attorneys.

Unless these cameras are run from the start of the shift until the end, officers will forget to turn them on or not have time to engage them during spontaneous/threatening incidents.  We need to merely recall how Chief Schultz and Deputy Chief Banks failed to turn theirs on during their use of force at a State Fair parade.  Should APD insist on using the cameras they should fall under the same guidelines as the tape recorders of the past did.  That being they would be used for a short list of calls that were enumerated in the SOP, and the officers should be held to accountable for the recordings.

Personally I do not want to be video taped by anyone to include law enforcement.   I am sure this holds true for many citizens, witnesses and victims of crimes.  Nor do people want the inside of their homes video taped.  There are even some discussions with the criminal element better left not being taped.  The  issue of anonymity in reporting a crime has now  become a problem.   I am being told that Metro Court judges are now dismissing cases with no video, if that is the case shame on them as they should not need a video to decide guilt or innocence.   For those who insist on running these tapes from the beginning to the end of the shift consider the following.  Would you take a position that required the taping of your entire workday for 25 years?  The officers have a certain right to privacy, to be able to have personal and frank discussions between themselves, to blow off steam.   I had often wondered if APD's overly aggressive taping was the result of supervision issues? 

As for the Ferguson, Mo. shooting I am sure that the other investigative tools that have been used for decades will resolve the issue.  Let us not forget the video is only a tool and cannot relate an officers state of mind during a critical incident. Between the lapel camera issue and the "historic legislation" pertaining to the new police oversight agency that some members of the city council are so proud of is it no wonder the morale and work ethic of many APD officers continue on a downward spiral"

--David M. Gilmore (APD Captain, Retired)