Learning from cop cams
The release of video from NYPD body cameras of the deadly encounter with Miguel Richards in the Bronx gives New York, for the first time, the opportunity to appreciate the great value the equipment adds to our understanding of police-involved shootings — and to acknowledge the limitations in the longawaited technology.
Kudos to Police Commissioner Jimmy O’Neill for releasing the footage Thursday over the objections of the Bronx district attorney.
O’Neill should now refine existing rules to specify when, in future cases, the public will be able to see such video. While there need be no single, ironclad rule, we believe that, to give a restive public an objective view of what transpired, it should generally be released as soon as possible.
When video is withheld for a period of time for a credible reason, such as the possibility of tainting eyewitness testimony before it is taken, the commissioner ought to explain the delay to the public, with clarity and speed.
The Richards video shows four officers pleading, over the course of some 15 minutes, with an emotionally disturbed man who sat still in his dark bedroom — a knife in his left hand, his right hand mostly hidden behind his back.
Audio gives viewers a sense of officers’ extreme patience and professionalism as they repeatedly try to de-escalate the situation.
“I don’t want to shoot you. Put your hand up and drop that knife,” went the typical request.
Crucially, the video shows, at multiple moments, a reflective flash from Richards’ right hand. That is consistent with what officers repeatedly made clear to one another and to Richards, in real time, they believed to be a firearm.
“I don’t want to shoot you if you’ve got a fake gun in your hand, you hear me? But I will shoot you if that’s a real gun,” said one officer. Richards gave no reply. At last, an officer wielding a Taser entered the room. Richards finally raised his right arm, holding what cameras show to be an object consistent with a gun. That officer fired his Taser; two seconds later, two others fired their guns.
No question, officers had every reason to believe that Richards held a real firearm. The moment he swung that object toward them, seeming to threaten their lives, training and law and precedent would deem them justified in firing their weapons, whether Taser or gun or both.
Even state-of-the-art camera equipment, however — even when seen from four angles — leaves major questions unanswered.
The vantage point of the NYPD-issued body camera is chest-level. That means what it captures does not precisely match what officers saw.
Moreover, police officers’ arms and equipment frequently, and inevitably, obscure pieces of the field of vision, especially at key moments. That happened here.
Even high-resolution cameras are incapable, especially in low-light situations like this one, of detecting shapes and objects with nuance and precision rivaling the human eye.
In the most critical seconds, movement also happens to be most sudden. Unsteady video is the most difficult to discern.
Last, no camera provides a window into an officer’s mindset at the moment he or she makes a fateful decision. That is what a judgment of justifiability in the use of force ultimately depends upon.
Body camera footage shines a bright light on police-civilian encounters. But it cannot now — and perhaps never will — answer every question.