Janice Cantore's Blog

Scrolling through posts on Facebook after the first of the year, there were a lot of people happy to see 2016 go. There is so much hope in the turning over of a new year. Hope that things will be better, that all the really bad times are behind us. That is certainly my hope for my law enforcement brothers and sisters. One hundred and forty police offices died in the line of duty in 2016, 63 by gunfire.  As a retired cop I will remember 2016 as the year of the ambush. Pennsylvania, Dallas, Baton Rouge, St. Louis.

Unfortunately, 2017 has already started out with at least two more ambushes on officers. In one, a sergeant with Orlando PD was killed, and in another shooting, in Arizona, an armed citizen shot and killed a man who had ambushed and shot an Arizona State Trooper. Because of the citizen’s action, the trooper is recovering in the hospital. Thank God for a brave armed citizen, for if not for him, instead of five law enforcement deaths in the year so far, there would be six.

This  craziness has to stop. The problem is, police officers, for the most part, cannot do their work in secret, neither can they be selective in the calls they handle. They head out to where they are dispatched in a clearly marked vehicle in a clearly noticeable uniform, if someone wants to take a shot, unfortunately it’s easy.

When I was in uniform we went through a tough period of anti cop sentiment and rioting after the Rodney King verdict. It was scary and it was dangerous, but there was always the feeling that the majority of the people we served were behind us and that most people had our backs. With all of this violence directed at law enforcement recently, with headline after headline proclaiming an officer shot, or an officer’s death, I wonder if the men and women in law enforcement do feel that the majority of the people they serve have their backs. I do all that I can do to make certain the police in my community know they have my support. And I would pray that if I came across a situation like happened in Arizona that I would be able to act in such a manner.

Obviously, not everyone could come to the aid of an officer by shooting and killing an assailant, but you can pray for police, you can offer your support when you see them out in the community, you can teach your children to respect the law and law enforcement. Our culture should be a culture that respects the law. If you need a cop in a an emergency, 911 will bring them to your aid. Let’s start our own reverse 911 and pray and support those who protect us.

 

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In the aftermath of the horrible tragedy in Dallas there is so much commentary out there, some informed, some completely uninformed. The video that recorded the tragedy pretty much sums it up. All of those people on the street protesting the cops, cheering the thought of killing police, when the shooting started, who did they look to for protection? To the very people who they were protesting and vilifying, the people in blue. And the people in blue did not disappoint. They ran toward the danger, toward the shots, and some of them died protecting the very people who hate them.

That’s because that is what we do.

Even before social media police work was visible and minutely scrutinized. Police work is 24/7, police stations never close and officers contact people all the time. They confront situations that look out of place, that look dangerous, that are dangerous, they don’t look the other way. Police respond to dangerous calls, to active criminal behavior, they don’t drive the other way. By shear volume the odds are that some contacts will not go well. Not every citizen interaction can be handled with a “please” and “thank you”, after all we take people to jail. Police work is not always pretty, but that does not mean it’s illegal, wrong, or racist. With the explosion of social media there is more scrutiny than ever. This is good if bad cops are exposed, but horrible if there is a rush to judgment and good cops are tarnished by half the story, or unfortunate situations.

There is a cacophony of voices out there criticizing police and yes, calling for their murder. You can find it on twitter, on Facebook, with vile hateful language, people praising Dallas. And unfortunately while that sort of language should be condemned, it’s not. These people are listened to as if their opinion is legitimate. It’s not. I’m sorry, but in my world, if you are calling for an officer’s murder (or anyone’s murder) for any reason, it is because you are a criminal and want to continue your criminal activity without impediment.

I understand people protesting because they have a legitimate grievance or pain. But to call for the murder of those who put their lives on the line protecting you is beyond reprehensible.

But cops will continue to do what they do, protecting and serving their communities. The men and women I proudly served with took their jobs seriously and rushed into dangerous situations time and time again, to help, to protect, ALL citizens.

Who are you going to call when you need help? The criminal yelling ‘death to the police’ or the cop who will continue to do his/her duty no matter the hatred or the peril?

If a cop is dirty or crosses the line, fire and/or prosecute. Don’t color every single officer with the same brush.

I’m sick of the anti-police rhetoric. Come on people, wake up.

 

 

 

 

The post Blue Lives – Every Life Matters appeared first on Janice Cantore.

 

Maybe it’s macabre, but I think real crime stories are a gold mine for fictional story ideas. I get a lot of ideas from current events and from true crime programs like Cold Case Files and Forensic Files.

In my Cold Case Justice series (Drawing Fire, Burning Proof, and Catching Heat), I drew not only from true crime programs, but also from the FBI official website: www.FBI.gov. Real life is a treasure trove of ideas for fictional crimes and criminals.

Creating a Realistic Protagonist

The character of Brinna Caruso (Critical Pursuit, Visible Threat) came to me after reading an article about a twenty-year-old cold case.

The article, “Miracle Rescue,” told the story of a six-year-old girl who was abducted, raped, and left in the desert to die. She was found by a sheriff’s search helicopter, shackled to a railroad tie at the entrance to a mine shaft. The story was an anniversary piece; it had been twenty years since the little girl was rescued. The perpetrator was never caught.

What impressed me about the story was the profile of the now-adult victim. The woman had not let the tragically cruel event define her or destroy her life. She was living on the East Coast and was in college studying law and planning on becoming a prosecutor. She refused to be a victim; she was a survivor.

My character, K-9 Officer Brinna Caruso, was born after I read that article. I wanted her to be a strong, sure adult in spite of tragedy in her past. She went through the toughest thing imaginable at a young age, similar to the real-life story, and grew up strong and focused because of it. In the book Critical Pursuit she’s earned the nickname “Kid Crusader” because she fights to protect youngsters.

Shaping a Struggling Victim

In my latest book, Burning Proof, Detective Abby Hart and PI Luke Murphy help solve a cold case involving a young woman who, ten years previous, was abducted from a bus stop and raped. She barely escaped with her life.

The idea was drawn from a true-crime cold case episode of a predator stalking young girls in the San Diego area. He killed two women, if I remember right, and abducted a third, but she was able to free herself from the trunk of his car and was rescued.

Despite a good description of the attacker, the case went cold, largely because the suspect moved out of state. It was only solved several years later when the bad guy was caught back east doing the same thing: abducting women, raping them, then killing and dumping the bodies. Once caught, he confessed to the killings in California and to kidnapping the one who got away.

Molly, my victim in Burning Proof, was the one who got away. Ten years later, the case is cold, and she is struggling with PTSD . . . and the fact that her attacker was never caught.

The villain in this book stopped committing crimes for a different reason than the real-life bad guy. He shipped out to Iraq right after Molly got away, working as a truck driver for a civilian contractor. While in Iraq, he is involved in a crash that paralyzes him from the waist down.

It’s up to Abby and Luke to put the pieces together and figure out who perpetrated Molly’s kidnapping.

Crafting a Formidable Villain

The bad guy in Catching Heat, which will release in September, was drawn from a couple of different sources. The first was the story of John List. In 1971 he killed his whole family—wife, mother, and three kids—then disappeared. Nearly twenty years later, after a broadcast of America’s Most Wanted, this killer was apprehended living in a different state, married to another woman under a different name. He eventually died in prison.

The second incident was another family massacre, this time in Florida in 2001. The suspect, Robert William Fischer, killed his wife and children, set his house on fire, and disappeared. He is still missing and is on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list.

Without giving away any spoilers, I played the what-if game and wondered how these men were able to do what they did and disappear to live new lives. This creates a smart villain, one living in plain sight, probably staying just one step ahead of the law in today’s technology-heavy world, with cameras, computers, social media, etc.

Add dedicated law enforcement agents, determined to solve the crime, and you have a good thriller.

Unfortunately, the best thing about crimes and headlines is that there is never a shortage of material.

Just this weekend a house in a small rural community close to me exploded in a blast so strong, windows in nearby houses blew out. The headline the next day was “Somebody was trying to kill us.” The homeowner claims the blast was intentional, and that if he and his wife had been home, they’d be dead.

Oh, now to dig into this story and play the what-if game.

 

Anyone out there have some true crime stories that might be idea starters for books?

 

 

(Reprinted from my submission to Seekerville Blog)

 

 

The post Current Events and Fictional Stories appeared first on Janice Cantore.

There has been so much negative news lately about police officers and the use of deadly force. When someone is in police custody, or has contact with the police, and they appear to be unarmed, and the contact ends badly, the news media seems to bold the phrase “unarmed” as if unarmed means ‘docile and not dangerous’. A friend of mine posted a letter written to a newspaper entitled “Unarmed Does Not Mean Not Dangerous” and the letter is spot on. http://www.ocregister.com/articles/unarmed-667414-officers-year.html

Hands and feet can be a weapons, being under the influence of a narcotic can make the whole person a weapon, a group of people may not have weapons but out numbering the police can be more dangerous than a weapon, and the size of a suspect versus the size of an officer can be more dangerous than a weapon. Officers are trained to evaluate a lot of variables when they confront a suspect, or simply stop to investigate a subject or situation that looks off.  The scariest thing that can happen is underestimating a suspect because he/she was unarmed. A highly motivated, unarmed, individual intent on doing harm to a cop is extremely dangerous.

There is a disturbing video floating around the internet from an officer’s dash cam. It’s a recording of a traffic stop gone horribly wrong. The female officer in the video is small and slightly built. The man she has stopped is at least three inches taller than she is and at least 100 pound heavier. He’s not armed, and there is no audio, but at one point it becomes obvious the man does not want to do what the officer is asking him to do. BAM, in a second he slugs her, knocks her down, and straddles her, punching her violently in the head and face. She is immediately incapacitated. When he finishes pummeling her, he stands up, points at her and yells something, then gets in his car and drives away, leaving the officer lying in front of her squad car.

If this officer had been able to shoot the man you can be sure the first word in the news article would be “unarmed.” I’m not sure how it turned out for the officer, I pray she survived, but if that had been me, I know I’d never be the same. She was fortunate he did not take her weapon and shoot her, she never would have been able to stop him. I can’t stress enough, “a highly motivated, unarmed individual intent on doing harm to a cop is extremely dangerous.”

Officers contact people often in highly emotional states.  Statistics show that if a suspect is able to take an officer’s gun away he is more likely than not going to use that gun against the officer. When a situation goes south an officer cannot afford to hesitate, because you can bet the crook will not hesitate. I would hate to hear of an officer hesitating because of the climate in the media right now and losing their life.

Law enforcement is a tough profession, and the vast majority of men and woman who work the streets in patrol capacity want to help people, they are ready in a second’s notice to jump into a dangerous situation to do just that. Pray for police officers, it is a dangerous world out there and they need the support of the people they protect.

 

The post Unarmed Does Not Mean Not Dangerous appeared first on Janice Cantore.

One of the first arrests I made as a police officer was of a man who’d just murdered his live in girlfriend. He dragged her out into an alley and shot her in the head, many people witnessed the crime. He actually turned himself in to me, handed me his gun and confessed. Later, I learned that he’d been threatening to kill the woman for weeks. He told just about anyone who would listen his plans. He was convicted for the crime and went to prison.

Seven years later he was out on parole.

I still can’t see the justice in that. Such a light sentence devalues the life of the victim, in my opinion. But it’s one step better than never seeing any justice, like what happens in a cold case. People committing murder and seemingly escaping justice is the greatest of injustice. Here is a small slice of current cold cases in this country:

JonBenet Ramsey – The murder of the 6 year old in 1996 has never been closed. (Colorado)
Sheila and Katherine Lyons – The 12 and 10-year-old sisters went missing in 1975, there is a person of interest in the case but no arrest has been made. (Maryland)
Joy Hibbs – 36-year-old mother was found murdered and set on fire in 1991- no suspects. (Pennsylvania)
Jaye Potter Mintz – 23 year old was murdered in front of her 2-year-old son in 1987 – no suspects. (North Carolina)
Deborah Lee Shelton – the 12 year old was abducted and murdered in 1969 – no suspects. (In a weird twist, in 2001 her sister, Victoria, then 44 years old, went missing and has never been found, (California)

I agree with Proverbs 12:15, “When justice is done, it is a joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers.”

I know that there is ultimate justice for everyone, but I can’t imagine the pain and torture in this life for family members who fear they will never see justice for their loved one.

Years ago there was a TV show called The Twilight Zone. One episode depicted clearly and cleverly the idea that justice may be delayed, but it can’t be avoided. It was a kind of what- goes -around -comes- around tale. The first scene is of a man in the old west on a horse with a rope around his neck. As he waits to be hanged he taunts the father of the man he murdered, obviously not repentant. The sheriff smacks the villain’s horse and the horse lurches away to leave the man hanging, but suddenly the man disappears and everyone is looking at an empty noose swinging from the tree.

Next we fast forward to the 1960’s, a scientist is tending to the man who just had the noose around his neck. Seems this scientist is dabbling in time travel and he reached back in time and blindly pulled someone forward, not knowing he rescued the man from capitol punishment. He finds out soon enough. The criminal gets stronger and then kills the scientist and rushes out into a new world that he cannot comprehend. After wandering, and not understanding cars and electricity, the criminal makes his way back to the scientist’s office. He has no clue about what to do when a petty thief breaks in to rob the office. They scuffle, and the thief ends up killing the villain, strangling him with the cords on the office blinds.

The thief then wanders through the office, looking for things to steal. He ends up inside the time machine, pushing buttons, looking for a safe to open. You guessed it, he pushes the wrong button and ends up back in time, at the end of the noose where everything started.

Nobody really gets away with anything in this life.

I can’t imagine how people deal with the never knowing, with never seeing justice, but the mother of the two girls in the last case listed above, she lost her 12 year old daughter in 1969, and then her other daughter years later in 2001, says it best:

“This is never very far from my mind, but I can’t solve it,” she said. “I have turned it over to the Lord. My grandmother used to say, ‘God does not pay off on Saturday nights,’ so I figure it is in his hands. He knows all things and it’s not hidden from him.”

Amen.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/28/deborah-lee-shelton-victoria-lee-specials_n_4875653.html?utm_hp_ref=cold-cases

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734567/?ref_=ttep_ep26

The post Justice – Cold Case and Otherwise appeared first on Janice Cantore.

One of the first arrests I made as a police officer was of a man who’d just murdered his live in girlfriend. He dragged her out into an alley and shot her in the head, many people witnessed the crime. He actually turned himself in to me, handed me his gun and confessed. Later, I learned that he’d been threatening to kill the woman for weeks. He told just about anyone who would listen his plans. He was convicted for the crime and went to prison.

Seven years later he was out on parole.

I still can’t see the justice in that. Such a light sentence devalues the life of the victim, in my opinion. But it’s one step better than never seeing any justice, like what happens in a cold case. People committing murder and seemingly escaping justice is the greatest of injustice. Here is a small slice of current cold cases in this country:

JonBenet Ramsey – The murder of the 6 year old in 1996 has never been closed. (Colorado)
Sheila and Katherine Lyons – The 12 and 10-year-old sisters went missing in 1975, there is a person of interest in the case but no arrest has been made. (Maryland)
Joy Hibbs – 36-year-old mother was found murdered and set on fire in 1991- no suspects. (Pennsylvania)
Jaye Potter Mintz – 23 year old was murdered in front of her 2-year-old son in 1987 – no suspects. (North Carolina)
Deborah Lee Shelton – the 12 year old was abducted and murdered in 1969 – no suspects. (In a weird twist, in 2001 her sister, Victoria, then 44 years old, went missing and has never been found, (California)

I agree with Proverbs 12:15, “When justice is done, it is a joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers.”

I know that there is ultimate justice for everyone, but I can’t imagine the pain and torture in this life for family members who fear they will never see justice for their loved one.

Years ago there was a TV show called The Twilight Zone. One episode depicted clearly and cleverly the idea that justice may be delayed, but it can’t be avoided. It was a kind of what- goes -around -comes- around tale. The first scene is of a man in the old west on a horse with a rope around his neck. As he waits to be hanged he taunts the father of the man he murdered, obviously not repentant. The sheriff smacks the villain’s horse and the horse lurches away to leave the man hanging, but suddenly the man disappears and everyone is looking at an empty noose swinging from the tree.

Next we fast forward to the 1960’s, a scientist is tending to the man who just had the noose around his neck. Seems this scientist is dabbling in time travel and he reached back in time and blindly pulled someone forward, not knowing he rescued the man from capitol punishment. He finds out soon enough. The criminal gets stronger and then kills the scientist and rushes out into a new world that he cannot comprehend. After wandering, and not understanding cars and electricity, the criminal makes his way back to the scientist’s office. He has no clue about what to do when a petty thief breaks in to rob the office. They scuffle, and the thief ends up killing the villain, strangling him with the cords on the office blinds.

The thief then wanders through the office, looking for things to steal. He ends up inside the time machine, pushing buttons, looking for a safe to open. You guessed it, he pushes the wrong button and ends up back in time, at the end of the noose where everything started.

Nobody really gets away with anything in this life.

I can’t imagine how people deal with the never knowing, with never seeing justice, but the mother of the two girls in the last case listed above, she lost her 12 year old daughter in 1969, and then her other daughter years later in 2001, says it best:

“This is never very far from my mind, but I can’t solve it,” she said. “I have turned it over to the Lord. My grandmother used to say, ‘God does not pay off on Saturday nights,’ so I figure it is in his hands. He knows all things and it’s not hidden from him.”

Amen.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/28/deborah-lee-shelton-victoria-lee-specials_n_4875653.html?utm_hp_ref=cold-cases

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734567/?ref_=ttep_ep26

The post Justice – Cold Case and Other wise appeared first on Janice Cantore.

Robert Durst  ( http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/03/16/durst-hbo-murder-hearing/24837005/ ) is the reason that I developed an interest in cold crime cases. The frustrating, twisted story of his life journey actually reads like a novel with the bad guy always getting away with it. Death follows this guy but he seems to be made of Teflon, nothing sticks. His story starts years ago, in the 1980s. In 1982 his wife, Kathy, disappeared. Durst was strongly suspected but never charged, and I don’t believe Kathy’s body was ever found. The story continues on, full of innuendo and intrigue, culminating in the murder of Susan Berman, in California in 2000. Supposedly, Berman was a good friend of Durst and reportedly knew that he was involved in his wife’s disappearance and most likely killed her. Berman was set to be interviewed by a DA about what she knew, but before the interview could take place, she was found shot to death, execution style.

Durst moved to Texas after Berman’s murder where his life became what only can be described as bizarre. He began cross dressing for some reason and had several disagreements with a neighbor. Low and behold, the neighbor ends up dead, cut into pieces, dumped into the bay. Durst is arrested and admits cutting his neighbor up and disposing of the body but denies killing him. Amazingly, the jury believed him and he was acquitted of the murder charges.  I followed this case at the time and remembered thinking after the verdict, what other reason would you have for cutting up a body and throwing it in the bay then to try and cover up the fact that you murdered the person?

In between disappearances and murders, Durst lived an odd life, often like a homeless person, but he is worth billions. His family is also worth billions, but they are afraid of him, many of his siblings have restraining orders against him. Against this backdrop HBO decided to do a documentary on the weird, rich man. They use the title Jinx for the man, and he certainly seems to be that for people who cross his path.

During the filming of the documentary, on tape, Durst made some statements that could be construed as incriminating regarding “murders” so he’s being extradited to California to be charged with killing Susan Berman. Is this the end of the story? Will Durst be convicted of murder? Soap opera or crime novel, I’ll be tuned into find out.

The post The Cold, Odd Case of Robert Durst appeared first on Janice Cantore.

Two high profile trials are in the news today, the Chris Kyle murder trial and the Boston bomber murder trial. In the Kyle trial they managed to seat a jury but as I write this, they have not yet seated a jury in the Boston trial. It’s tough going for jury selection in the Boston trial http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/13/us/tsarnaev-13th-juror-delays/. With all the news both of these incidents have garnered, I can’t imagine finding people whose perception is not in some way tainted by news reports. They need twelve people who will truly evaluate all the evidence they hear at trial without preconceived bias. I would not want to serve on either one of those juries, not because of the time involved, but particularly in the Boston trial, there will be so much information to shift through it will be crazy making.

There’s an old joke that goes something like this, “It’s not comforting to trust your fate to twelve people who were not smart enough to get out of jury duty.” I don’t think that’s fair. I think most people who commit to jury duty, especially if it’s a high profile case, really want to listen and make the right decision. But no one is a professional juror. It may be a one time in life event sitting on a jury. Unfortunately, in high profile cases, the defense lawyers, who are practiced at planting doubt in people’s minds, that’s what they do for a living, know how to twist facts, and make people question what they can see with their own eyes. Then of course there are dueling experts. The prosecution will have their experts and the defense will have theirs. People on juries in high profile cases get a tremendous amount of information thrown at them in a short amount of time. I commend people who will give up a portion of their life to serve on a jury.

My mom liked jury duty, it was something she took seriously. Over the years while I was growing up, she answered the summons many times and served on a couple of juries. It was important to her to listen and do the best she could to make the right decision.

I was exempt from jury duty while I was on the job, but the year I retired, I was summoned right away. I went, thinking I would never be picked for a jury because of my background, but I almost was. The two lawyers and the judge peppered me with questions to the point of taking me back into chambers for a private interview. They wanted to know if I could be objective and they explained to me the case, it was a drug case involving two officers I knew well. I told them honestly that I trusted the two cops and would be more inclined to believe them then not. I was released. And to be honest, I do have a bias (if you couldn’t tell already). I tend to believe the cop.

That being said, I do believe in the process, everyone deserves a fair trial and a jury of 12 people who will honestly evaluate all the evidence.  Bottom line, jury duty is a necessary part of living in and being part of a community. It’s something people should be proud to to do and motivated to do their absolute best. I’m glad there are those who are conscientious enough to step up and serve when called.

Anyone out there have interesting jury duty stories?

 

The post Celebrating Jury Duty appeared first on Janice Cantore.

The other day there was an article in the paper about two teenage girls who ran away from home. The story first appeared on the weekend, only it was regarding one missing girl. As the police began to investigate and ask questions, it turns out the girl, and her friend decided to run away from home. One of the girls was last seen hitchhiking in California. I see stories like this and I just shake my head in bewilderment. What are these girls thinking? “Human/Child Trafficking is one of the fastest growing crimes in the world.  Human/Child trafficking is the world’s second largest criminal enterprise, after drugs.” (U.S. State Department) If you have not heard about this horrific crime, here is a good definition.

WHAT IS HUMAN TRAFFICKING?

Human trafficking is a terrible crime that exploits innocent and vulnerable people. It is one of the fastest-growing criminal industries in the world that involves the recruiting, transporting, selling, or buying of people for the purpose of various forms of exploitation. Trafficked persons are often controlled through force, fraud, or coercion. http://www.oregonoath.org/

The key word is exploitation. Kids, usually girls, like the two who ran away, are the perfect victims for traffickers to exploit. Traffickers befriend the girls, gain their trust, then turn them out as prostitutes, keeping their identification or means of travel and preventing them contacting family or friends, basically enslaving them. Unlike drug trafficking which is finite, by that I mean once the drugs are sold, the trafficker has nothing until he gets more drugs. A human trafficker has a resource that doesn’t stop giving. He prostitutes his “girls”, a never ending resource stream if he keeps them basically imprisoned, doomed to service as many customers as he can find. Unfortunately, for these people there never seems to be a dearth of customers. Runaway teen girls are the poster children for “innocent and vulnerable”.

Maybe the girls had bad homes, maybe they truly believed they could take care of themselves in the world, I don’t know. But I do know that what they did is dangerous, like playing with fire they were exposing themselves to a big, bad world full of perverts and exploiters eager and able to burn them. As I write this, the girls are still out there. Police can only do so much, and when girls willingly put themselves in such a precarious position, it only makes a difficult job all the more difficult.

HELP

If you are a victim of human trafficking or would like to report a tip regarding suspected human trafficking, call 911 in an emergency. If you have information regarding human trafficking which is not an emergency, would like more information about human trafficking or would like to learn about how you can help, call the toll-free National Hotline at 1-888-3737-888.

Agencies are popping up to try and help, below are some sites with more information. Help if you can, pray if you’re prompted to, and get the word out so no more girls step out into the dangerous world without knowing what they are exposing themselves to.

www.redemptionridge.com 

http://occv.org/human-trafficking/

http://www.portlandonline.com/saltzman/?c=54076

 

 

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Cameras are everywhere now a days, they’re on everyone’s phone, at ATMs, banks, parking lots, shopping malls, etc. If you spend any time at all on Facebook you know exactly what I mean because it seems like there are always videos being posted of one thing or another. Police activity is a favorite subject of camera people. I’ve seen some videos that make officers look great just doing their job, and others that show bad things happening, officers doing stupid stuff. On the whole, I think cameras and police work are a good thing.

When I was working in a patrol car some guys would carry pocket recorders, but cameras were not common technology then like they are now. I always thought a camera would be helpful in showing a jury just what we had to deal with, what events led up to the arrest, especially when I had to arrest a combative drunk or anyone who did not want to cooperate. A camera would take away the ability of a good liar to fool a jury.

Years ago I had to testify in court regarding a drunk driving arrest.  This particular driver had several prior arrests and convictions for drunk driving and that made this simple DUI arrest a felony charge. The difference between a misdemeanor DUI and a felony DUI was the amount of prison time the person could serve. About the worst a misdemeanor DUI could be sentenced to was time in the county jail whereas a felony DUI could conceivably be sentenced to time in state prison, so it was no surprise when I received a subpoena to testify because the man was fighting the charge. My arrest was based on the fact that his driving was obviously impaired, he failed the standard field sobriety test, and he blew a .08 on the breathalyzer. However, when we got to court I felt like the one on trial. I became the bad guy, according to the driver’s attorney the arrest was a bums rush, the man was not drunk, he’d only had one drink and I raced him to the station, breaking all traffic laws to make him blow in the breath machine quickly before the alcohol dissipated and it was below .08 blood alcohol. This made no sense because there was a procedure to follow regarding testing and I could not rush that test. But the lawyer was successful in producing reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury. Anyway, the point is, at the time I really wished I’d had a camera filming the arrest so the jury could have seen just how impaired the man was. He testified in his own defense and I believe got their sympathy, would they still have cut him slack if they had really seen how he behaved that night? I would hope that there would have been no place for doubt.

A drunk driving arrest is a routine occurrence, shootings are not. And shootings are easily the most controversial action an officer can take. An officer discharging his/her weapon because they are responding to a threat is a split second happening. Some agencies with bumper mounted cameras have already benefited from the technology, they can see immediately why the officer felt the need to discharge his firearm. When I was still working I asked about the bumper mounted cameras many agencies utilized at the time. The consensus was that they were too expensive for an agency the size of Long Beach. Fast forward to present day, after the Ferguson debacle,  I asked a friend who still works for the PD about cameras, and she indicated that body cameras are affordable and probably the next thing.

As of this writing, no verdict has been released regarding the shooting in Ferguson, MO. Whether or not the police officer will be charged with any wrong doing is up to the grand jury. I know that there were some after the fact videos floating around that people had taken with their phones, but no one captured the entire incident. Part of me wonders if all the controversy regarding the incident could have been avoided if the officer had been wearing a body camera. Maybe not, the situation is so emotionally charged, and fueled by the media, maybe nothing would help. I like to be optimistic and pray that in the future, cameras will help, if not avoiding a bad scene because all parties know they are on “candid camera”, then at least clearly recording a bad scene so that everyone knows what truly happened.

 

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