Alix Breeden at Daily Kos:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents shot and killed two people in a one-week span. On July 7, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo—a 52-year-old Mexican national who had lived and worked in the U.S. for over 30 years—was shot dead while on his way to work in Houston. Agents were looking for a different man whose vehicle resembled Salgado’s. On July 13 in Maine, 26-year-old Colombian man Johan Sebastián Guerrero was also killed by an ICE agent while driving, in yet another case of mistaken identity. His 3-year-old daughter was later spotted at the scene wearing Bluey pajamas, with Guerrero’s sobbing wife by her side.  In Salgado’s case, the Department of Homeland Security claimed that he “weaponized” his vehicle by trying to hit an ICE agent, who had no choice but to respond by shooting. In Guerrero’s case, a DHS spokesman claimed he was trying to flee the scene, so an agent opened fire out of “concern for public safety.”  But the lack of evidence for these claims—and the expectation that the public take DHS’ claims at face value—speak to a larger point:  Neither of the agents in Maine or Houston were wearing body cameras, despite a January directive from former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for them to do so. 

[...] The body-cam mandate was prompted by the January shooting deaths of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who were killed while protesting or observing widespread ICE raids in Minneapolis. But this issue goes beyond simply requiring ICE agents to have a camera affixed to their uniforms. A small recording device won’t necessarily stop an officer from responding with deadly force.  And even in cases like Good’s shooting, where cameras were present, the video evidence was mostly withheld until recently, almost six months after her death. 

Vancouver police officers are set to begin using body-worn cameras this fall, following recommendations from a coroner’s inquest into the death of a man who was severely beaten by members of the force seven years ago.

The Vancouver Police Department has been exploring the possibility of cameras since 2009, but expedited the timeline of a pilot program after jurors at the inquest deemed Myles Gray’s death a homicide in May.

Gray was beaten by seven officers in August 2015, leaving him with injuries including hemorrhaging in his testicles and fractures in his eye socket, nose, voice box and rib. He died shortly afterward.

The homicide finding carries no legal responsibility, and none of the officers were charged.

Full article

ACLU's current proposal for how bodycams should be restricted. Countless restrictions each of which might be defensible on its own, but the sum gives me the very strong impression they've decided they don't want this (unless it can be used for the criminals).

A lot of it is dictating when the cop should turn bodycam on and turn bodycam off, which is a failure waiting to happen.

Some highlights:

A law enforcement officer who is wearing a body camera shall notify the subject(s) of the recording that they are being recorded by a body camera as close to the inception of the encounter as is reasonably possible.

Arguably unenforceable in crowded areas, unless you play games with the definition of "subject". (The ACLU plays games with the definition of "subject" in the footnotes, saying it shall not include people who only "incidentally" appear in the recording.) And including this with the next point,

Body cameras shall not be used surreptitiously.

This is arguably contrary to the basic idea of cops having bodycams. They should be always-on while the cop is on duty and the cop doesn't get access to tinker with the device. It should be publicly announced and made common knowledge in a bodycam state (or other jurisdiction) that "Cops Are Recording" as a default fact about cops, so it can't be used surreptitiously.

But the ACLU decides to shoot their nominal cause in the foot by trying to micromanage when the cop is supposed to turn the bodycam on and turn the bodycam off, and this inevitably gives the cop more wiggle room to turn it on and off for his own purposes.

When interacting with an apparent crime victim, a law enforcement officer shall, as soon as practicable, ask the apparent crime victim, if the apparent crime victim wants the officer to discontinue use of the officer’s body camera. If the apparent crime victim responds affirmatively, the law enforcement officer shall immediately discontinue use of the body camera

There's a hell of a lot riding on that "as soon as practicable" clause, and a hell of a lot of exploit room for having a criminal feign victimhood to get the camera turned off and cover their buddies.

Body cameras shall not be used to gather intelligence information based on First Amendment protected speech, associations, or religion, or to record activity that is unrelated to a response to a call for service or a law enforcement or investigative encounter between a law enforcement officer and a member of the public.

No. Just have the fucking things recording by default. It turns on when the cop signs in and it turns off when the cop signs out, maybe tied to the Hours Worked at the precinct to disincentivize fudging. Then restrict access to the footage, instead of demanding the cop constantly second-guess himself and the review court about when to turn it on and turn it off.

I repeat: Giving the cop full control over his own bodycam is a failure mode waiting to happen. The ACLU is smart enough to know this. The fact that they're demanding it anyway suggests to me they want messy grounds for lawsuits.

Law enforcement officers shall not activate a body camera while on the grounds of any public, private or parochial elementary or secondary school, except when responding to an imminent threat to life or health.

Given that this is ten pages of legalese, I am not inclined to give them benefit of the doubt for the obvious loophole of "the cop activates the camera before entering the grounds".

No body camera shall be equipped with, or have its video footage or other data subjected to, facial recognition or any other form of biometric analysis.

That middle clause is dumb and doesn't belong here.

Should any law enforcement officer, employee, or agent fail to adhere to the recording or retention requirements contained in this chapter [...] (2) A rebuttable evidentiary presumption shall be adopted in favor of criminal defendants who reasonably assert that exculpatory evidence was destroyed or not captured; and (3) A rebuttable evidentiary presumption shall be adopted on behalf of civil plaintiffs suing the government, a law enforcement agency and/or law enforcement officers for damages based on police misconduct who reasonably assert that evidence supporting their claim was destroyed or not captured.

This is a sort of final clause which would be reasonable and good with always-on or at least strongly on-by-default bodycams where it takes unusual effort for the cop to interfere with his own bodycam in any way.

In a bill where the ACLU is demanding the cop turn his own bodycam off for this, turn it on for that, turn it off again for the other, turn it on except as specified in section (2)(j)(iv), turn it off if he is requested by such-and-such unless there are exigent circumstances, notwithstanding the previous it shall be turned on as specified in subsection F-yourmother, and make sure to constantly notify people in the middle of everything else you're doing, et cetera, et fucking cetera, -- it's practically guaranteed the cop will violate it.

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