BWC, Agency Deficiencies, And The Last To Know

I had a conversation the other day with a detective who works in one of the top 50 police departments in the country. He was disheartened, but resigned, at the poor quality of “on scene” investigation and paperwork work done by patrol officers in his department. He stated he had to look at all body-worn camera (BWC) video associated with an incident because the quality of work from many patrol officers is substandard. The video generally helped show a more complete story than the officers’ paperwork. He accepted, and was resigned to the fact, that this was simply a part of his duties, albeit a time-consuming part. However, what he told me next was a bit surprising. He said that he routinely observed officer behaviors and actions that would have been unacceptable during his patrol time many years ago. He provided some examples of which I had to agree with him. He wasn’t talking about misconduct or criminal behavior. He was referring to poor patrol techniques, lack of officer safety tactics, weak communications skills, and the like. He said that he had occasionally reached out to individual patrol officers attempting to provide some guidance outside the chain of command but with only limited success. He reached out to supervisors when he saw something more troubling that needed to be addressed immediately. Again, with limited success. In response to all of this, I asked him what his department’s policy was on supervisory review of BWC video. It was the usual process of supervisory review that is common in most departments’ BWC policies. The supervisor must review a certain number of videos, of a certain length, per officer, per month. I asked if the department had a “compliance or audit” process at the department level. He didn’t believe so (I researched the policy online and they only have supervisory review). 

This conversation raised a lot of questions in my mind about this department and its use of BWC video. Here are the questions I’d respectively ask if I had the opportunity to speak with that department’s chief.

·      How well do you believe your officers are trained?

·      How professional do you believe your officers conduct themselves?

·      How good is your first line supervision?

·      How good are your detectives?

·      How efficient are your investigative processes?

·      How effective is your inter-agency communications?

·      How comprehensive is your BWC policy?

·      How effective is your supervisory BWC video review program?

Then I’d ask, “how do you know?” followed by,

·      What are the top five risks to your agency?

·      Why don’t you have an agency level BWC review and risk management program in place to proactively and reactively address these risks?

·      When was the last time you, personally, proactively looked at any BWC video; not just those attached to critical incidents or internal investigations?

·      Are you willing to take the risks, personally and for the department, by not leveraging the power of BWC video to verify your beliefs about your agency competency and professionalism?

·      Or are you willing to use BWC video to mitigate risk for your department? If so, how?

I’ve said for years that agencies “own” everything that is recorded on every BWC video, whether they look at it or not. There are three consumers of BWC video: the agency, the courts, and the community. At some point, someone in one of these three groups is likely to see the content of any video. Are you prepared for that? The detective I spoke to saw it, the prosecutors will see it, the courts may see it, and the public may eventually see it. I would submit that the agency leadership will be the last to see it and that may come as an unpleasant but avoidable surprise.