Video Cameras Catches Police Action - Be It Good Or Bad

Let's face it - video cameras are out there. In the United States patrol car dash cams have caught officers doing something bad to a civilian.

In Chicago, these cameras showed police officer James Mandarino hitting motorist Ronald Bell 15 times with his baton after a traffic stop last month. According to the State Attorney handling the case, the video showed the victim was not even a threat to the officer.

In another case a couple of years ago, security cameras caught Chicago police officer Anthony Abbate beating the crap out of bartender Karolina Obrycka. He was found guilty and the video helped in doing that.

And of course who can forget the Rodney King police beating video?

Yes the video is indeed a powerful tool and it has caught many "bad" apples doing things they should not do.

That being said, it has also caught a lot of "good" people, especially law enforcement officers doing part of their job but because the video only shows a small piece of it, what is shown get's misconstrued what actually happened, disregarding the totality of the event.

Of course one needs to get all the facts first and the video is just one of many. Unfortunately it is the one that affects emotions the most, complete depiction of actual events or not.

I wonder if we have the same set-up here for our police vehicles?

We should have the same kind of setup in our police officer's vehicles and in our police officer's precints if we don't. Why should our law eforcement not be held accountable if it's possible.

If we don't have it why not? Is it because our police officers are afraid that they may be caught doing "awkward" things that they rather would not want the public to know.

I would not be surprised if they would use that for a reason.

And if there are dash cams installed why isn't the public and the media allowed to see it? Especially when shoot-outs occur?

I for one would like to see it happen so that we can really figure out what happened during those so called "encounters" where all the suspects wind up riddled with over 100 bullets - including innocent bystanders.

It would be great if we can do that . . .