- If Minneapolis police officers
had been wearing body cameras,
could it have prevented the excessive force that led
to the murder of 46-year-old George Floyd?
Dr. Jennifer Matthews says body worn cameras are
reshaping police citizen interactions
and she believes that it could have made a
life-saving difference.
Dr. Matthews has implemented, managed
and trained more than 3000 Chicago area law enforcement
officers in body-worn camera programs.
Matthews shares insights from her PhD dissertation
for Walden University on body worn camera use
and citizen behavior during police citizen encounters.
Do you think George Floyd would've been murdered if any
of those officers had been wearing body cams?
- I think it definitely could have been prevented.
I definitely don't like to say it's a, uh, end all,
be all like a sure thing.
I never like to say that because we can't predict the future
and we can't go back and change history.
But I definitely think that there,
it could have been prevented.
It would've been less likely
if they were wearing body cameras.
It was good that the person that did record did record
because the story was able to be told
in a different light
because had they not recorded then it would just been told
from the officer's perspective
and maybe the truth would've never came to light
and George Floyd would have died.
In vain
- Body-worn cameras have become a pivotal tool in
modern law enforcement.
The technology provides a means to enhance transparency,
accountability, and trust between police officers
and the communities they serve.
Dr. Matthew's dissertation focused on citizens' experiences
during police encounters involving body-worn cameras.
She found that the presence
of a body-worn camera put citizens more at ease.
So they felt the need to comply with police officers
during encounters.
- Theories that my dissertation were based off
of was self-awareness deterrent,
and then procedural justice.
So self-awareness comes in when the,
the citizen knows
that they are being watched on body camera.
And of course the officer knows
that they are being watched on body camera
'cause why they're wearing the body camera.
So that's the self-awareness theory.
Then the deterrence theory.
So the deterrence theory is nobody wants to be caught.
So you're going to do what you know is right
because you don't want to be caught if you know
that there are consequences.
If you are caught doing the wrong
thing, what is the wrong thing?
The wrong thing is breaking the law.
So if you're caught doing something wrong on body camera,
the likelihood of you being caught in put in jail
or facing consequences for that is more likely
because of the deterrence theory.
And then procedural justice is
how the officer is treating the citizen that they're coming
to encounter with on body-worn camera. But
- In your research you do show that it,
it alters people's reactions.
They don't want to get in trouble yet.
Most of the officers are not telling people You're on
candid camera here.
Why do you think that is? Because it seems like would just
deescalate at the very beginning.
- Okay. And this is something that I preach
and I feel like I'm preaching to myself instead of
to the choir .
So I think that they do not
tell the citizens that they come in contact with,
that they are being recorded
because it's not required in their policies and procedures.
A lot of times police officers are not going to go out
of their way to do above and beyond their job, above
and beyond their job description.
A lot of times some will, but a lot of them will not.
So their policies and procedures say to activate the camera,
but a lot of them do not say,
you must tell the citizen that you're recording.
Why they don't say that. It's up
to each different police department to put
that in their policies and procedures.
And they simply do not.
But I always tell the officers that I train to one,
narrate your video and to two, tell the citizen
or whomever you're coming in contact with
that you are recording.
'cause why then the body camera can have its intended
effect, which is deterrence.
- Do the policies dictate when they turn it on,
does it turn on automatically? How does that work?
- So the policies do dictate when they turn it on.
So there's a few ways that it, it works.
So one, the officer can activate the camera.
Two, some departments have it where if the lights
and sirens turn on, it will activate the body camera.
Some departments have it
where if the officer pulls their service weapon out
of the holster, it will activate their body camera.
Some, um, departments have it
where if the officer pulls their taser to use
that it will activate their body camera.
So it just depends on what that department's policies are,
which will activate their body camera.
But let's say the officer is recording already
and then they pull their service weapon,
they pull their taser, they activate their lights
and sirens, it will not turn off their body camera.
It will just still be like a continuation.
It won't have any effect on that body camera
because they're already recording.
- So if the officer will reveal the camera,
do you think that'll set a more positive tone
immediately in the interaction?
- 100%. I, I think if they reveal
that they are recording, it will
help initially, immediately.
Because now that citizen knows what to expect.
They knows what, they know what's going on
and they know that no matter what,
whether this officer is treating them by the color
of the law, whether this officer is treating them harshly,
that there is an impartial witness on the scene right now,
and that they can go back and refer to that footage.
They can request that footage via foia.
Or if they need to get a lawyer,
that lawyer can subpoena that footage.
So if they're announcing, Hey, I'm recording,
that citizen knows immediately, hey, this can go one way
or the other, but I have some recourse at the end
of the day when with my interaction with this officer,
- You do see on YouTube these body worn camera videos of
refusing to follow the officer's
instructions and everything else.
What's, what is going on there?
What's behind those emotions?
- Again, lack of respect.
That is lack of respect right there.
They do not respect authority anymore. That's what that is.
And I teach classes to young people,
whether it be high schoolers,
whether it be young adults in college,
and I teach them how to interact
with police when they come into contact with them.
Because I tell them all the time, you come into contact
with the police officers
or police, law enforcement, whoever they may be,
and you escalate the situation to a level
where they're not even trying to raise it to
when all you have to do is listen to them.
And I'll give you a prime example,
and this is an example I give to all of my classes
and it makes them think every time.
So let's say you're driving in a car
and the officer pulls you over
and they say, Hey, can I have your license and registration?
And the person that they stopped, the driver is irate.
Why did you pull me over?
They're yelling, why did you pull me over?
I didn't do anything wrong.
And you're the person is just irate
and they're yelling at the officer
and they're doing all of this and all that.
Well, now the officer's like, why is this person so irate?
Maybe they're doing something that is causing for alarm.
Maybe they're hiding something.
Maybe I need to look at this car a little bit longer.
Maybe I need to inspect this car.
Maybe I need to inspect this person when, guess what?
The officer only wanted to let you know
that your taillight was out.
That's it. And they're like, oh my gosh, they do that.
I'm like, yes, they do that.
That's all they wanted to tell you.
- Well, with your experience training officers
and out of the community, do you, do you have any sense
of what has happened?
Because everybody, I run into teachers
and all believe that there's, that we've got a crisis
in lack of respect.
- Yes. Yes. That's that's exactly what it is.
It's a, it's a very much so a crisis and lack of respect.
And I feel like it's my duty to go out to the public
and train the citizens,
and I'm training them on what the body cameras can do.
Because when I go to the classroom
and I tell them, it can do this, it can do that,
it cannot do this, it cannot do that.
They're astonished.
They're like, well, I heard it can do this.
And I heard that and I'm like, no. Mm-Hmm, we can't do that.
Well, I heard the police officer can do this.
Well, no, they can't do that.
And they're like, they have this picture in their mind
and they're doing all these things
because they're, these mist exist.
So when I'm training them on what the truth is, now,
that respect level is slowly but surely coming back
because they had their own idea in their heads.
So it's, it, it is no respect. Yes.
But to train the citizens, to train the public on
what is true will only is the only way I feel like the
police and citizens can get aligned again.
- So what are some of the major myths that you have to pop?
- Okay, that's a really, really, really great question.
One major myth that I get all the time is that
a officer can record an incident
and then go back to the station and change it.
That's the first one I get majority of the time.
And I'm like, it does not work like that.
They cannot change that video from what just happened.
It does not work like that.
It trach takes a trained professional to let's say,
manipulate that video footage.
And then at, at that point, there's only so many things
that can be changed in that video.
What can be changed? Blurring of faces.
Blurring of faces mean a juvenile means a person
who was not the intended target of the video.
So let's say you are stopped by the police
and Joe Blow walks past, we're gonna blur Joe Blow's face
because he's not a part of this incident.
So that's what I mean by blurring of the faces.
Where can, we can mute audio? Why would you mute audio?
Let's say you're giving out your birthdate
or you're giving out your driver's license number.
Well, you don't want that out in the public,
so you'll blur that audio.
So just certain things can be manipulated on the video.
However, even if those things
are manipulated in the video footage, the original
is still always intact.
People don't realize that. They do not realize that.
They think, oh my gosh,
this person has manipulated the video.
They changed it. It's, it's gone forever.
It does not work like that.
The original remains intact
and you manipulate the, the copy, if you will,
but the original is always there.
It never changes.
- No, I know from your background,
you've trained at least 3000 officers all
- Yes.
- when you first come in contact
with 'em to start the training.
Yes. What's the what, what do you tell them first
to get them to buy in and understand how important it's,
- So my buy-in is always
that this will help you rather than hurt you.
And I can say from experience that the officers,
by the time, I'll say, by the time they've used it
for the camera
for I would say six months, they agree with me.
Because when it comes to officer citizen's complaints,
when it comes to officer incidents at all, anything
that that can come back and bite them
and they see that that camera was there
and they can go back to refer to it
and say, no,
it didn't happen this way, it happened that way.
And then they have that camera footage to back them up.
They are in in agreement with me that this will help them
more than a harm them.
So that's always my buy-in
- Police officers have taken on a stern business-like
approach when dealing with the public.
In the bygone days of Texas, the conversation
during a traffic stop usually started with Heidi,
how y'all doing today?
Now it is more likely a strict tone request
for license and registration.
- So I would say there is less friendliness
only because the tension between
officers and citizens have changed.
It's no longer, like the respect factor is so low,
the, the citizens are no longer respecting the police
the way they once did.
So I would definitely say that there is a change there.
So I feel like maybe they can seem robotical
because they want to do their job, they want
to do it the right way, they want to follow the rules,
and they don't want to maybe perhaps
be seen as going outside the color
of the law or giving way to
interpretation for impropriety.
So they might want to say, you know,
I did everything by the book.
If this person, you know, felt like I was overstepping
or was too friendly, they might draw
that a different conclusion from
what I was trying to garner.
So I could see them seeming, you know,
like almost like a robot for that reason.
And I, I would just say they, they're doing that
to try and cover themselves.
Because if they're too friendly, then the citizen may say,
oh, they did this,
or they were too fr, maybe they might say they're flirty
when all the officer was trying
to do was keep it lighthearted.
Or if they're too strict, then the citizen can accuse them
of being too harsh and now they get a complaint for that.
So it can go from each spectrum, if you will.
- Dr. Matthews says, the public perception
that abusive police officers are the rule,
not the exception, is the result of the amplification
of social media bias.
- So the citizens are saying their opinions about police
officers and police law enforcement in general are coming
from social media.
They're coming from watching the news,
they're coming from friends, they're coming from family.
So whatever these opinions are, they're adopting them.
They're not coming from real life interactions
because it is rare that law abiding citizens come into
interactions with the police.
- So do you think that it,
the opinions about police get exaggerated to the negative
- 100%.
100%. So unless you have a friend, family member
or somebody that you know by association
is a law enforcement officer, you are going to take
what you see, what you hear as the truth.
So if the media is saying,
all police officers use excessive force,
you're gonna be like, you know what?
All police officers use excessive force.
So, so if I get stopped by the police,
I'm going to yell at them.
I'm going to not listen to what they say,
they're not trustworthy, that kind of thing.
That's when you get this lack of respect for the police.
That's when you get this escalation of stops
and that kind of thing for the police.
That's where that comes from.
And it just continues on like a snowball
because of all of the negative publicity
that police officers and law enforcement get.
- Body-worn cameras originated the United Kingdom
during the early two thousands.
A landmark study by the University
of Cambridge involving nearly 2000 officers, found
that the introduction of body cameras
resulted in a 93% reduction in complaints against
police officers.
A 2014 study funded by the US Office of Justice Programs
Diagnostic Center, found
that body-worn cameras increased arrest prosecutions
and guilty pleas, while also enabling officers
to resolve criminal cases more swiftly and efficiently.
But the $750 cost of outfitting a single officer, as well as
maintaining and stirring video data can be substantial,
especially for smaller police departments
with limited budgets.
Providing an objective record of interactions in an era
of growing distrust has prompted the adoption
of body cameras by emergency medical services firefighters,
corrections officers in prisons,
some sports arenas and hospitals.
This signals the potential
for widespread adoption across commercial enterprises.
- So the good part about it is
that they can be used in other industries
to increase transparency
and accountability in these other industries who need them
because there are, you know,
allegations in other industries,
not just in law enforcement.
So I think that is really good that they're able to use that
to help other industries who may need them,
because we know that there are allegations in emergency
medical personnel industries that are like, oh, so
and so did this, or so and so did that.
Well, now there's a record. So we don't have to speculate.
We don't have to guess anymore.
We know exactly what's happening.
So I would definitely say given when they were initiated
to now, that is a huge change
and it's a change for the better.
- Dr. Matthew's research, along with the government
and university studies concludes
that body worn cameras have a calming effect on citizens
and can reduce use of force incidents
and citizens complaints against officers.
This is Robert Riggs reporting.