The Dallas Morning News has a story up on how the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department is pursuing outfitting it’s deputies with body cameras. They’re planning on starting with deputies in the warrant division because they spend most of their time away from their vehicles (so the dash cams miss a lot of what they do). Perhaps even more important is the dangerous nature of their work, which includes knocking on the doors of suspected criminals’ homes and trying to arrest them.
“It can be a very heated situation and, to be on the safe side, we want to document what is going on,” said Raul Reyna, a sheriff’s department spokesman.
This is a perfect example of the right way of looking at outfitting law enforcement officials with body cameras. It’s as much about protecting the officers from outlandish claims as it is about documenting potential abuse of position. If an officer isn’t doing anything wrong, he or she ought to want the body cam, in my opinion, because it has the potential of clearing their good name when falsely accused of doing something wrong.
Bravo for the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department!
View All Blogs
