PAX Centurion - January / March 2016

www.bppa.org PAX CENTURION • January/March 2016 • Page 37 By Dr. Bill Lewinski / Submitted by/commented upon by Matt Carey, Area A-1, Last Half Representative 10 limitations of body cams… A study from the Force Science Institute T he idea is gaining momentum that once every cop is equipped with a body camera, the controversy will be taken out of police shootings and other uses of force because “what really happened” will be captured on video for all to see. There’s no doubt that body cameras—like dash cams, cell phone cams, and surveillance cams—can provide a unique perspective on police encounters and, in some cases, are likely to help officers. But like those other devices, a camera mounted on your uniform or on your head has limitations that need to be understood and considered when evaluating the images they record. Certainly, a camera can provide more information about what happened on the street. But it can’t necessarily provide all the information needed to make a fair and impartial final judgment. There still may be influential human factors involved, apart from what the camera sees. 1. A camera doesn’t follow your eyes or see as they normally see. A t the current level of development, a body camera is not an eye-tracker like FSI has used in some of its studies of officer attention. That complex apparatus can follow the movement of your eyes and superimpose on video small red circles that mark precisely where you are looking from one microsecond to the next. “A body camera photographs a broad scene but it can’t document where within that scene you are looking at any given instant,” Lewinski says. “If you glance away from where the camera is concentrating, you may not see action within the camera frame that appears to be occurring ‘right before your eyes.’ “Likewise, the camera can’t acknowledge physiological and psychological phenomena that you may experience under high stress. As a survival mechanism, your brain may suppress some incoming visual images that seem unimportant in a life-threatening situation so you can completely focus very narrowly on the threat (AKA “Tunnel vision”).You won’t be aware of what your brain is screening out. “Your brain may also play visual tricks on you that the camera can’t match. If a suspect is driving a vehicle toward you, for example, it will seem to be closer, larger, and faster than it really is because of a phenomenon called ‘looming.’ Camera footage may not convey the same sense of threat that you experienced. “In short, there can be a huge disconnect between your field of view and your visual perception and the camera’s. Later, someone reviewing what’s caught on camera and judging our actions could have a profoundly different sense of what happened than you had at the time it was occurring.” 2. Some important danger cues can’t be recorded. “Y ou can usually tell when you touch a suspect whether he or she is going to resist.You may quickly apply force as a preemptive measure, but on camera it may look like you made an unprovoked attack, because the sensory cue you felt doesn’t record visually.”And, of course, the camera can’t record the history and experience you bring to an encounter. “Suspect behavior that may appear innocuous on film to a naïve civilian can convey the risk of mortal danger to you as a streetwise officer”. For instance, an assaultive subject who brings his hands up may look to a civilian like he’s surrendering, but to you, based on past experience, that can be a very intimidating and combative movement, signaling his preparation for a fighting attack. The camera just captures the action, not your interpretation.” 3. Camera speed differs from the speed of life. B ecause body cameras record at much higher speeds than typical convenience store or correctional facility security cameras, it’s less likely that important details will be lost in the millisecond gaps between frames, as sometimes happens with those cruder devices. “But it’s still theoretically possible that something as brief as a muzzle flash or the glint of a knife blade that may become a factor in a use-of-force case could still fail to be recorded”. Of greater consequence is the body camera’s depiction of action and reaction times. 4. Your body may block the view. “H ow much of a scene a camera captures is highly dependent on where it’s positioned and where the action takes place.” Depending on location and angle, a picture may be blocked by your own body parts, from your nose to your hands. “If you’re firing a gun or a Taser, for example, a camera on your chest may not record much more than your extended arms and hands. Or just blading your stance may obscure the camera’s view. Critical moments within a scenario that you can see may be missed entirely by your body cam because of these dynamics, ultimately masking what a reviewer may need to see to make a fair judgment.” 5. A camera only records in 2-D B ecause cameras don’t record depth of field – the third dimension that’s perceived by the human eye – accurately judging distances on their footage can be difficult. “Depending on the lens involved, cameras may compress distances between objects or make them appear closer than they really are,” Lewinski says. “Without a proper sense of distance, a reviewer may misinterpret the level of threat an officer was facing.” 6. A camera may see better than you do in low light. W hen footage is screened later, it may actually be possible to see elements of the scene in sharper detail than you could at the time the camera was activated. “If you are receiving less visual information than the camera is recording under time pressured See Body Cam on page 38