Some NYPD officers are accused of undermining the intent of body-worn cameras, sending their comrades verbal and non-verbal cues to warn each other of when the tiny devices are “hot” and rolling.
The damning findings are part of a investigative report by New York City’s Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) published last month, ABC News reports.
A probe into alleged misconduct by the city’s police found that some NYPD officers routinely used phrases like “I went to Hollywood,” “I’m hot” and “We’re live” to tip off fellow officers that their bodycams were recording.
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“The officers also used non-verbal cues, such as tapping motions, shoulder brushing and gesturing to indicate whether their cameras were turned on or off,” the CCRB said in its report, adding that NYPD officials later confirmed the force was training officers on how to alert one another to active BWCs.
The department first began using the cameras in 2014 after a federal judge ruled its highly scrutinized “stop-and-frisk” policies, championed by then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg, were unconstitutional and essentially a form of “indirect racial profiling” against New York City’s Black and Brown citizens. Since then, over 3.5 million videos have been recorded with 24,000 of the cameras carried by the more than 36,000 officers outfitted with the palm-sized devices, according to NYPD data.
The cameras are aimed at deterring misconduct and aiding the CCRD in the thousands of complaints it investigates each year. However, police officers’ use of covert cues to alert one another to “hot” bodycams essentially negates the purpose of the BWC program, the watchdog group argues.
“Given these identified incidents of officer interference, the CCRB believes the NYPD should amend its policy to prohibit officers from intentionally disrupting a BWC recording, including the use of signaling, to obfuscate or facilitate misconduct,” its report reads.
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