And the Oh, The This is hell and what we thought the future would be was a future of greater law enforcement

accountability in police involved shootings by having on-duty officers wear body cameras which would chronicle all interactions with the public

they are sworn to serve and protect.

Cops wearing cameras it was thought would lead to a record of what happens when the police and

public intermix. In so doing those who are responsible can be held accountable

for actions or reactions outside the rule of law. With such technology

justice could finally be served and we could determine what really happens in

police involved shootings.

We would no longer have to depend on the word of a police officer

who makes the ultimate sacrifice for our safety

to uphold the law against the word of someone who the police and the press immediately

label as a suspect.

It only made sense that bodycams could bring about more justice, but that seems to be the only thing body cameras on police ever did.

That is, make logical sense.

Because what it has not done is lead to the kind of

transparency that advocates and supporters of bodycams had hoped. The kind of

transparency that would hold whoever is responsible in a police involved shooting accountable.

Instead body cams are used more to defend police in shootings, not because they have revealed that officers are rarely in the wrong in shootings,

but because the police control the footage and refuse to make it accessible to outside

investigators, even family members of the victims, or citizen review boards,

before time runs out and it's too late to discipline offending officers.

And even when cops are found responsible, they are rarely held accountable as police

...