Going To Prison For Failing To Turn On A Body Camera

Could the simple mistake of failing to press 'record' cost a police officer 15 years behind bars? Dr. Travis Yates challenges you to consider the harsh realities of a legislative proposal that's sparking debate across Tennessee. This episode delves into the murky waters of body camera legislation, where the line between accountability and draconian punishment blurs. As we navigate the heated discussions, we shed light on the historical rise of body cams following the events in Ferguson, dissect the current proposed law's potential to change police conduct, and its implications on every interaction officers have with the public. With careers, public safety, and the very essence of trust in law enforcement hanging in the balance, we confront the silence from major police organizations and the urgency for community action.

Step into the shoes of Tennessee's finest and imagine facing a future where the high-stakes environment of law enforcement is compounded by the threat of severe legal repercussions for what could be a split-second oversight. This episode is a call to arms for leaders and citizens alike to recognize the gravity of a bill that could redefine the landscape of policing. With a focus on the chilling effect such legislation may have on the recruitment and retention of officers, Travis passionately advocates for proactive measures to safeguard the pillars of public safety. As the bill looms over the state's criminal justice committee, the time is now to join the conversation and address this pressing issue with the urgency it demands.

See The Proposed Bill Here

Read: Failure of Body Cameras

Washington D.C. Body Camera Study

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Transcript

Travis Yates: 0:00

If I were to tell you that there's a state that's trying to throw cops in jail for up to 15 years for failing to turn on a body camera, what state do you think that would come from? And no, California doesn't count. That wouldn't shock anybody, that wouldn't be newsworthy of talking about. So as we start the show, be thinking about what state you think that is.

Intro/Outro: 0:28

Welcome to courageous leadership with Travis Yates, where leaders find the insights, advice and encouragement they need to lead courageously.

Travis Yates: 0:38

Welcome back to the show. I'm so honored that you're here and I wanted to discuss a story that I ran across yesterday that really no one's really talking about, but it should certainly, since shivers up any spine of anybody that is in law enforcement or cares about law enforcement or cares about public safety, and it's a law that is designed to throw cops in prison for literally potentially making just a mistake or a human error or under stress, not turning on a body camera. Now I want to give a little bit of historical context to this law. Everybody knows that after Ferguson, the talk of body cameras really became popular to the point to where you have about 85% of police officers around the country are filming all their encounters for the most part that they have, and, of course, if we're not filming it, other people typically are. So we're not concerned about body cameras. Body cameras have significantly helped their profession in many ways, but it didn't help the profession in the way that some wanted, because you might got to remember that after Ferguson a legal, justified shooting where a robbery suspect tried to kill a police officer that's not me saying it was legally justified Every investigative body, including the DOJ, said that and we everybody talked about body cameras after that and so we all sort of ran and got body cameras. And you got to remember the research behind that.

Travis Yates: 2:01

There was a small department in California, I want to say. They put body cameras on about 30 patrol officers. They ran this for about six months and they found that complaints went down. So the narrative was that police act better with body cameras. Now that's a pretty faulty study because there's a number of reasons why the complaints may have gone down. It may have been cops acted better, or it may have been that citizens knew that they were being filmed and they couldn't lie when they complain. But we really don't know because the study was pretty faulty. And of course we have a recent study out of Washington DC and I'll put this in the show notes that pretty much said body cameras have little to do with officer behavior, although they have a lot to do with suspect behavior oftentimes, which is probably what occurred in that first study. And that study out of DC was an actual, real study. They ran it a thousand cops and put a body camera on them A thousand cops, they didn't put a body camera on all doing the same job. They ran it for 18 months, so it's a much longer research period. And they found, when it came to the data on arrest and use of force and complaints and all these metrics, that there was little to no change whatsoever between the officers with body cameras and the officers without body cameras. Now, that came to no surprise to anybody that works in law enforcement because you know, for the most part it's a pretty prep professional group of individuals and that a lot of times these narratives out there are just not even true or close to the truth.

Travis Yates: 3:25

But the people that demanded body cameras didn't exactly get what they wanted. They wanted to get officers on film doing things wrong, or they can complain, prosecute, you name it. And out of all of the millions of hours of body camera footage we get in a day, really what do you have? And you don't have much. Every once in a while you'll see one that comes around and you go. That's not good, but for the most part they've been. So I say they, the people that are anti-police, have been so adamant about wanting cops to get in trouble. You know, half the things that they're talking about are just plain outline. They'll throw out a body camera footage that's just out of context or whatever it is and they'll try to accuse the officer or something. But more times than not, body cameras clear law enforcement. It gives context and situation and it's been really beneficial and I think that's why we're seeing bills like this today and I'm going to read this proposed bill to you and I'll tell you where it comes from.

Travis Yates: 4:23

It's going to surprise you, but in this state there's a current felony law that if you, if you, impair an investigation by destroying or falsifying evidence, it's a felony. Now everybody understands that you can't destroy evidence and you can't. You know whether it's video evidence or paper evidence during investigation. Evidence can't be destroyed. That's an existing law in this state. Well, they are attempting to do an addition to that law and it's now serious. The law was proposed a year ago but now it's in the Criminal Justice Subcommittee. It's going through the process in this state and here's what the law says and you'll I'll link up the article here in the show notes, but it should spook anyone that is concerned about what is occurring in communities today. Here's what it says the bill adds to the above felony, so it's adding to the current law. It's intended for everybody to not destroy evidence If law enforcement officers with the intent to obstruct justice turn off, disable fell to turn on or operate a law enforcement recording device, including a law enforcement body camera, in any manner that prevents the creation of evidence.

Travis Yates: 5:41

They are facing three to 15 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Now you could read that law and you could say well, listen, there has to be an intent to obstruct justice. Well, who determines that intent? Is the mere act of not turning the body camera on? Is that the intent? Or what if an officer says I forgot to turn it on? What if an officer is in a high stress situation? And because we don't train turning on body cameras when people are shooting at you, they don't. They fail to turn on the body camera. So it's very vague for a reason it's vague because they want to throw cops in prison for simply doing their job.

Travis Yates: 6:19

Now are there cases of law enforcement purposely not turned on a body camera? Probably the Memphis incident, from what I can recall, was probably one of them. Their body cameras were turned off but the surveillance camera picked up some of that footage. But to say you're going to go to prison for not turning it on for anything, because it is failing to create evidence that's different than evidence existing. That's what they're trying to do in this law. This law exists for evidence that exists in an investigation and somebody destroys the evidence. This addition is the destruction of potential evidence. So you can see the problem here, and I don't care what the intent is, because the intent may be. Just you know the intent may be. We just want to capture as much footage as possible, and if an officer purposely does this to avoid this, this ABCD, whatever it is, that's fine.

Travis Yates: 7:14

But, as often the case, your intent of a law and the actual application of that law is completely different. Do you think the intent of the law in California to decriminalize shoplifting, so to speak, turned out the way they wanted it? No crime skyrocketed, businesses closed, and now that's the thing. The legislature's going in and they're making a new law to put the law back on the books, and of course that's in the process. But you get my point. I don't care what the person may say that proposed this law.

Travis Yates: 7:45

How the law is applied is what matters, and to me, when you read that statement, let me read it to you again the intent to obstruct justice, to turn off disable fell, to turn on or operate a law enforcement recording device, including body camera. There's a comment between each one of those. There's not a clause that says all this has to happen with intent. This is what it says. The intent to obstruct justice comma, to turn off comma, disable comma. Those are separate actions. So you could also read that to say I don't have to prove intent. If you don't turn on a body camera footage, you're going to jail for 15 years, regardless of where you think it is. The fact that we don't know is the problem. The fact that someone would try to do this is the problem, because let me tell you what the ramifications of this are.

Travis Yates: 8:35

In the state of Tennessee, which is where this law is, you can say goodbye to public safety because two things are going to occur. First, no one's going to want to go to work in the state of Tennessee. Why would they? In fact, I've already I've only warned against one police department in this country to never work for, and I hesitated to write it because that's not my nature. I believe in the glass half full, so to speak, that leadership can change everything. But I saw enough in Minneapolis to say you can't work there, it's too dangerous. They're trying to throw people in prison for doing their job. I lined it out. I'll put that in the show notes.

Travis Yates: 9:14

But if this passes, this makes that look like nothing. It's in the law books from the legislature saying yeah, regardless of what happens, you may have acted completely right, you may have been within the bounds of the Constitution, it may have been a completely legal stop, but if you did not turn on that body camera, you're going to jail. Now you're going to hear that and you're going to think to yourself Travis, that is crazy, that's not going to happen. Really, you want to work in that environment thinking surely they won't do that. And so that really brings to question why they're doing this in the first place. Because there hasn't been anything lined out on what the problem is. Is this a huge problem in the state of Tennessee that cops don't use body cameras? That sounds like a leadership management problem to me and a policy problem, not a law.

Travis Yates: 10:02

And so you're going to have one. No one's going to ever want to work in the state of Tennessee. That's just straight and straight, plain and simple. I don't know I don't know how else you say it. Why would you do that, unless you don't like your freedom and number two, the existing officers that don't immediately leave, that maybe they're there for pension reasons or whatever. They're going to do as little as they possibly have to do.

Travis Yates: 10:27

Now the problem with that is is this profession and this line of work is unique in the fact that you never know what may happen. I mean, you could be sitting in your car and somebody ambush you right. Well, are you going to remember to turn on your body camera when the gun fight starts? Right, and we all see the problems with this. I'm not worried about the day to day interaction where you know your heart your heart beats 85 and you remember to turn on the body camera. It's not a big deal, but I'm talking about a dynamic situation where you really need a body camera because it's liable to be a used to force situation. That happens split second. You got to make split second decisions. Are you really turning on the body camera? Oftentimes you are, but there are going to be times when it just doesn't happen, and because that is human nature and that's human performance factors.

Travis Yates: 11:11

Folks and we study this in all professions we understand what human performance factors are, we understand what impacts it, but in law enforcement, we're literally passing laws, knowing that this occurs and knowing we'll be able to throw cops in prison when it happens, whether they meant to or they don't. And then, if the determination isn't in 10 or not, who gets to decide that? And this is really unbelievable, to be honest with you. And why do I bring it up? Yeah, maybe it doesn't pass, but I bring it up because it's attempted, and these legislators do not make decisions in a bubble, just like cops do. They talk to other cops. These politicians talk to other politicians, and I can guarantee you that Tennessee will not be the last state that tries this, and so that's why I'm discussing it.

Travis Yates: 11:55

But I'm also discussing it because, oddly enough, as I've said more often than not, no national police organizations are talking about this. It drives me absolutely crazy that we have these large organizations that are, say, there for you, and when things like this happen, when we need them, they are deathly silent. And so that is a huge problem in this profession. It's a huge problem with leadership, and we have to do something different than that, because look at what has been happening day in and day out in the last few years, and nobody seems to care. But I know you do, that's why you're listening.

Travis Yates: 12:30

So what do you do about this? Where should a leader do about this? Well, first thing the leaders in Tennessee ought to be doing is they ought to be speaking out right now. You don't wait for the law to pass. You need to be communicating with your public and your citizens right now on why this is a problem. You need to take reporters out to a simulated situation and see how well they do under stress. You need to be educating your public of how wrong this is, because if you wait till it passes, it's hard to go back and do that, and so they need to be coming out strong on this, even to the point of maybe you won't be able to have an existing police department if this passes. There are small departments right now that have gone under because there are states that passed mandatory body cameras. They couldn't afford it, so these small departments had to just fold and the county took over. That's been happening, and so this is serious enough to where people that lead these organizations in this state. They better be standing up for their people right now, and they need to be very vocal about this. Now. How many will? Not many?

Travis Yates: 13:34

We see that time and time again, everybody is worried about me, myself and I and folks. That's not a leadership. Oh, I'm worried about my pension or my job or my mayor's gonna think. That's not a leadership. That's cowardice. Folks, leadership is ugly, it's bloody, it's tough, it's stressful. When you take care of other people and you commit to serve others, you will sacrifice. I don't know where we got in our head that this leadership is this quasi managing numbers and budgets and stuff. No, no, it's people. And when you defend people on what's right, there could be consequences. And you know what? If you're a leader, that's okay. I am so amazed at how weak some people seem to be in a profession where we're clearly not weak. We're some of the strongest and bravest out there.

Travis Yates: 14:24

But when it comes to issues like this, the fact that we can be silent about it drives me crazy. But we can't be silent here. I know there are people I rub wrong. Why are you talking about that? Why are you talking about this? Why'd you say it like that? Well, my response is is it true or not? That is my barometer. Is what I'm saying true or not? Why, if I'm telling the truth, why is that somehow controversial? You tell me? To me it's controversial to try to pass a law like this. It's controversial to lie. It's controversial to promulgate a false narrative about policing. That should be what's controversy. We have leaders that are partaking in this and we'll get into all that in the months to come.

Travis Yates: 15:05

So I wanted to just briefly bring this to you. The state of Tennessee is a great state. Some great cities there, some great police officers there. There's even a few good firemen, believe it or not, in that state. I love that state.

Travis Yates: 15:16

But this bill will destroy the state of Tennessee in due time, because no one in their right mind will go to work anywhere where, if you fail to do something and you're asked to do it under intense stress or scrutiny and you fail to do it just once you're facing prison. So be aware of that, be concerned about that, pray for the state of Tennessee and if you live in the state of Tennessee, contact me. I mean, I will help you with this, but you cannot be silent. There has to be a response to something this outrageous, and the fact that this did not get immediately destroyed out of that legislative body should be concerning, because it is now into its criminal justice committee, where I'm sure the debate will begin, but who's gonna be talking about that? Yay or nay for that, and so keep that in mind. Thanks for listening, and just remember lead on and stay courageous.

Intro/Outro: 16:15

Thank you for listening to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates. We invite you to join other courageous leaders at www. travisyates. org.