Two officers were suspended — one for failing to report a use of force, and the other for punching a restrained individual and delaying medical care. Both incidents were captured on body-worn camera. Read about it here. The “bad news” is that these incidents happened at all. The “good news” is that the agency identified them and took corrective action. But the larger, unanswered question in the article is this: how were these incidents identified? When misconduct is caught in

On June 9th, a Colorado judge ruled that the Aurora Colorado Police Department violated the Colorado Law Enforcement Integrity Act (CLEIA) by refusing to release all unedited body-worn camera video of a fatal officer-involved shooting incident. The case focused on the meaning of the words "incident" and "uneditied". You can read this article from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press summarizing the case. The court's ruling is 13 pages long and I encourage all law

This article from the LA Times entitled "A CHP officer shot him 12 times. But with no body cameras, truth is elusive" The story is about the fatal shooting of 21 year old Sei-Jah Riveria in the early morning hours of February 26th, 2025. The article blames the California Highway Patrol for the fact their personnel do not have body cameras. To quote the article: "While there is CHP dashcam footage from that morning of Feb. 26, the shooting itself isn’t captured on camera. Tha

For years, I’ve spoken about the three key consumers of law enforcement body-worn camera (BWC) footage, summarized by the acronym C.O.P. — the Courts, the Organizations, and the Public. It’s undeniable that the widespread use of BWCs across law enforcement agencies has significantly shaped the public’s modern perception of policing in America. Yet, many police leaders underestimate just how profound this impact has been. Much of what the public now sees and critiques would re

BWCs should be worn no matter what you call the assignment a uniformed officer works that is not a regularly scheduled duty shift. Officers who work these assignments wear a uniform, and a camera is part of the uniform in the same way a gun, baton, handcuffs and pepper spray are. This has been a recommended policy item for years. This news story out of Columbus Ohio emphasizes the need for this requirement. The policy change was a result of several high-profile incidents invo

The family of a man shot by an officer in Bay Minette, AL, in August 2022, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city, the police department and the involved officer. Details of the incident can be found here. The officer was wearing a body camera, and it was activated. The shooting was investigated by the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office (BCSO) Major Crimes Unit. Their findings were sent to the Alabama Attorney General’s Office who reviewed all the evidence, to inclu

I had a conversation the other day with a detective who works in one of the top 50 police departments in the country. He was disheartened, but resigned, at the poor quality of “on scene” investigation and paperwork work done by patrol officers in his department. He stated he had to look at all body-worn camera (BWC) video associated with an incident because the quality of work from many patrol officers is substandard. The video generally helped show a more complete story than

Body-Worn Cameras (BWC) have been in use by law enforcement well in excess of a dozen years. Why are state legislatures still struggling to get BWC laws right? We saw virtually no laws enacted in the early years of implementation. Slowly, legislatures began to realize they needed to set some uniform BWC guidelines. Depending on the state, these ran the gamut from overly broad guidance to detailed and specific requirements. Many of these came with unfunded mandates. Laws were

Let’s face it. There’s rarely a “perfect” police operations policy of any type that covers all possible eventualities. That’s certainly true of BWC policies and I’ve reviewed hundreds. When it comes to BWC activation however, a poorly written policy puts officers at a higher risk. Let me explain, and at the end of this short read I’ll offer officers a tip for surviving a weak BWC activation policy. Recently, I had a conversation with a friend of mine who had no law enforcem

In 2016 I was interviewed, as the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Body-Worn Camera Program Manager, by Karen Weise for an article she was writing for Bloomberg Businessweek entitled “Will a Camera on Every Cop Help Save Lives or Just Make a Tech Company Richer?” (July 18, 2016 edition). While the article mostly focused on Axon and its business development strategy, she also examined the current efficacy and future protentional of body-worn cameras. The following is a

There was a recent story on National Public Radio that began with the premise that there are far too many body camera videos for a police agency to review all of them unless they use "artificial intelligence" or, perhaps more accurately, "automated analysis". While this is certainly true, there are three points of that are being left out of this discussion. 1) These automated analysis systems are only currently designed to gauge police-citizen interactions. That is of

As KAIT News in Arkansas alludes to, many body-worn cameras (BWC) have a mute function which allows the camera to continue to record video, but the audio can be temporarily disabled. When muting does occur, the question that may arise is, are officers muting the audio for a cause, or is there malicious intent? It is common for many department policies to have exceptions when audio can be muted if that functionality is enabled. For example, an officer may be authorized to util

Another Implementation of body-worn cameras (BWC) outside of Law Enforcement has made it to the United States. Kenmore, Washington, began equipping their game officials with body-worn cameras to deter poor spectator behavior. ESPN: Testing body cameras as a potential solution to abuse of game officials. The abusive and threatening behavior directed toward game officials at an 8th-grade basketball game turned violent when a spectator intentionally knocked an elderly game off

Illinois State Police have released body-worn camera video of the fatal shooting of Sonya Massey on July 6th by Sangamon County Sheriff's Deputy Sean Grayson. This tragic and horrific incident has garnered national attention, as it should. I will refrain from commenting on the incident itself. Undoubtedly, every aspect of the event will be disected in the ensuing investigation, criminal, and civil trials. I want to discuss the fact that Deputy Grayson didn't activate his came

This recent story out of Albuquerque, New Mexico, reinforces my premise that, besides recording police activities, body-worn cameras also document a department's culture. You may argue that this is just a singular incident involving two officers, but is it? Is this singular or is this pervasive? This isn't the first time similar comments have been recorded by body cameras around the country. These incidents do little to reinforce public support in the current climate of polic

There is an ongoing debate in Alaska, specifically Anchorage, regarding the release of body-worn camera video in the aftermath of an officer-involved shooting. According to one news article, both Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor and Deputy Attorney General John Skidmore believe that it is a violation of the constitutional rights of an individual (i.e. officers) to release video before an investigation is completed. On the other side of the debate is the newly appointed Chi

What happens when body-worn cameras don't function as intended, there are exigent circumstances, or both? An incident recently occurred in Narragansett, Rhode Island, where the "auto-activation" feature of the BWC system reportedly didn't function properly (see article). BWC hardware or system failures are rarely due to officer error. Agencies should have procedures outlined in policy that cover pre-shift operational system checks and actions to be taken when defects are iden

I am honored to publicly express my deepest gratitude to the Colorado State Patrol for the incredible opportunity to serve as a body-worn camera program consultant over the past two years. Your trust in my expertise and the collaborative spirit we've shared have been profoundly rewarding. Working alongside such dedicated professionals as Chief Matt Packard, Chief of Staff Sarah Allen, Major Afsoon Ansari, Captain Shane Scovel and Mr. Doug Oates, has been a privilege. I am gr

By Daniel Zehnder, Founder and President, Principis Group, Inc This recent news out of Detroit should serve as a reminder of the importance of monitoring the Digital Evidence Management System(DEMS) daily. A DEMS/CAD integrated automatic sync process just isn’t optional anymore for mid to large agencies. One event equals one video per officer on scene. Additionally, manufacturers provide additional software solutions to assist in managing the monitoring of activations. Yes, t

By Daniel Zehnder, Founder and President of Principis Group, Inc In 2016, I began to follow the deployment of body-worn cameras (BWC) in private sector businesses in England. Our law enforcement counterparts in England were years ahead of us in the United States with BWC implementation so it seemed natural for them to also be forward thinking about migrating the technology to non-public applications. I saw a personal business opportunity here in the US with bringing lessons l