Philadelphia’s Citizens Police Oversight Commission reviewed body-worn camera footage from the Philadelphia Police Department (PDP) and found that, in some instances, officers ignored police department policies and procedures, according to Kensington Voice. The audit from the commission, which was created in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd, found that only 54% of the 119 recordings analyzed met all department criteria (full incident captured, activation from standby, no prohibited content), and only 6% complied with PPD’s requirement that it be stated why a camera was turned off. Hans Menos, Vice President of Public Safety Innovations at CPE, says why it is important that police body-worn cameras be turned on for an entire encounter:
In order to create the kind of transparency that prevents use-of-force incidents and increases public trust, officers need to keep their cameras on the whole time, said Hans Menos, vice president of public safety innovations at the Center for Policing Equity. Menos is also a former executive director of the Philadelphia police oversight entity that preceded CPOC.
“When the camera turns on and someone is already bleeding or already in handcuffs, what happened before that is pretty important,” he said. “That’s the point of the body-worn camera.”
Read the full Kensington Voice article on Metro Philadelphia’s website.