While the nation debates whether to outfit cops with body cameras, Branford’s officers are already walking the walk — and praising the results.
President Obama has proposed sending $263 million to local departments to buy body cams in the aftermath of the deaths of two unarmed black men killed by cops in Ferguson, Missouri, and Staten Island, New York. New Haven was already in the process of negotiating with its police union about the introduction of body cameras.
All 51 officers in Branford already wear the cameras. Chief Kevin Halloran said he has witnessed civilians making complaints about the police only to change their mind when they view the video — as in the case of the profanity-lacved video at the top of this story, in which the Branford officer kept his cool.
Halloran said his officers have learned to trust the little camera on their shirt or jacket to back up their accounts of remaining calm when civilians lash out at them.
Marcia Chambers Photo
Back in 2008 the Branford Police Department purchased a pair of body cameras for traffic officers, a first for the department and for a Connecticut town. At the time then-Police Chief John DeCarlo decided on body cams because the department didn’t have the funds for traffic car cameras.
When Kevin Halloran became chief of police in 2011 he decided to outfit all officers in the department. Halloran wears a body camera, too, but only in his police car, he said. Virtually all police cams are used in public places, on roads, for example, where privacy issues do not come into play.
In an interview with the Eagle, Chief Halloran said the department has learned a lot about body cams since all the police officers were given them. Complaints against police officers have fallen, he said. For another, the body cam have helped foster better relationships between civilians and cops, even if when interactions start off badly.
DeCarlo, who is now an associate professor at the John Jay School of Criminal Justice in New York, told the Eagle that a half-dozen research studies on body cams show “a decided increase in civility.” Once a driver “sees the body cam and knows he or she is being recorded,” attitudes change, DeCarlo said. He recalled one instance in Branford when a woman driver accused a traffic cop of making an inappropriate statement to her. “The video cam showed nothing of the sort,” DeCarlo said.
He said that across the country there has been a “groundswell of action” toward supplying cops with cams and more studies are planned.
Cops Want Cams
Marcia Chambers Photo
In the three years since the force started using cameras for all officers, Halloran (pictured) said, his officers have come to realize how dependent they are on their camera.
“They have learned it has protected them,” Halloran said. “They have learned it is a great tool.” Halloran said because of the body cams and other programs, like “Coffee with a Cop,” “we have a better relationship with the public.
“Now that all the officers are equipped, a couple of things have happened,” Halloran said. “The first thing I noticed is that after the initial resistance and after the officers were exonerated for civilian complaints made against them, they would actually get upset if they came in and a camera wasn’t available.”
Why did Halloran want his officers to wear body cameras?
“I started getting complaints against the officers and their conduct and the way they were performing when they stopped cars. I began to ask could this really be the case? Mostly we heard that they officers were rude. So that’s when I decided, well, I am getting a one-sided story. Then I would interview the officer as part of the complaint process and they would say, ‘This never happened. Honest, chief.’ You want to believe the officer, but then you are getting these complaints. So how do you prove this?”
When the program was first getting underway, Halloran used asset forfeiture funds to purchase the cameras. The Branford Police Department participates in federal asset forfeiture programs, allowing the department to use confiscated assets from drug crimes toward other programs. The camera program is now part of the department’s annual budget.
When he started the program, Halloran didn’t have enough cameras for every cop. He also met “with some resistance in the beginning,” he said.
“I started off by buying 15 or 20 or so. So back then the officers shared them. And that became problematic.” Why? “Because there was no accountability for the cameras. Someone would use it, put it back in the rack and then it wasn’t charged. The next officer would come in, put it on, go out to the street, turn it on and find out it wasn’t working. There were a host of issues.”
Once every cop received a camera he or she was responsible for, the prior problems went away, he said. “The tension resulting when a motorist is pulled over may well lead to a misperception of what was said and done,” the chief said.
“The nice thing was after some complaints came in and we looked at the videos it wasn’t the way people said the incident occurred. Sometimes I think people perceive things differently as to how things happen. So what I would do is if someone came in to file a complaint against an officer, I would let them watch the video. And you know after watching the video, I would ask ‘Are you sure you want to file this complaint?’”
Most times the motorist would apologize, thank the chief for his time and say he just didn’t realize certain things were said, he recounted. “Because you know what, when you get stopped in a motor vehicle stop you get nervous. Sometimes the driver doesn’t process or perceive exactly what is going on. And sometimes the way the officer talks is different. The officers don’t know who they are stopping in a car. So their demeanor may be official but they are not being rude.
“So people would come in, see the video and realize that things didn’t transpire the way they thought they did.”
Video Cam is 2‑D not 3D
A police cam does not give a wide lens view of the event at hand. For traffic cops the video records the interaction between the cop and the civilian – usually at driver window height.
But a 3‑D view, the view that other witnesses videotaping the Staten Island event had, for example, is not what cops get. The cops get a two-dimensional view only.
“If something happens over here,” Halloran said, turning his head left to look at a different part of his office, “then unless I turn my body I can’t film that side of the room. An officer is not going to change his way of doing things to appease the camera. All the officers’ video cams have is one direct view, from the center of the officer’s shirt to the person in front of them.
“But,” the chief added, “It’s better than nothing.”
###