Police Militarization

755 Words4 Pages

Lately, on any news station there has been shooting incidents where police are wearing helmets, masks, and assault rifles, while riding in armored vehicles, for their own safety. Police Militarization involves the use of military equipment used by law enforcement officers. This equipment could range from assault rifles, to sniper rifles, even to a wide variety and different types of grenades. In contrary, many individuals believe that a simple camera that captures interactions with police officers, could help hinder these problems before they even occur. What ‘Ellowitz notes’ is that each camera has a 130-degree wide lens, an 8GB hard drive, and a battery life that lasts about 12 hours, the normal length of an officer 's work shift. The …show more content…

Roller reports “Police departments will need to rely on their own database to store the camera footage, and the amount of storage can be costly”. “Aside from the question about data storage, there are security concerns: Do the small police departments have the cybersecurity ,and the resources to protect the footage from hackers”(Roller 1)? Another question that was brought to attention, should body camera footage be treated as a public medium, or as private evidence? To conclude your answer on this problem, Nobody knows exactly how the Police should treat body camera footage, but the large problem is if this video footage will infringe our Constitutional rights. In San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman recently said “footage from the city’s newly implemented body cameras will never be made public; we don’t release video to the media period”(Roller 2). Although the footage will never be made public, what are the chances that cyber hackers on the web, will never tampered with the evidence. Especially, with the new advance technology that anyone could …show more content…

For an example, to add an exception on state wiretapping laws for body cameras to be allowed, and used for law enforcement purposes. As Roll explains, “All of these conflicting standards in states show just how thorny body camera implementation could be”. In the united states the new body camera program could cause more conflict towards militarizing the police force or, it could be another helpful tool for the