Officer Mounted Cameras and Accountability: Does Yonkers Trust the Hype?
by Jacob Ready
October 27th 2014
It’s the sort of thing that should never happen to anyone. On a Friday night last January, Angel, a Yonkers resident, and her boyfriend were stopped by police on Yonkers Avenue while trying to catch a cab on the way home from work. Despite the fact that he was committing no crime, two police officers shoved Angel’s boyfriend against their car, holding him there for over an hour because he had no identification. It wasn’t until a third officer intervened that Angel and her boyfriend were free to leave. Angel believes that this incident was the result of racial profiling—she could find no other reason for her and her boyfriend’s Mexican ethnicity for this mistreatment.
Angel knew little about officer mounted cameras when I spoke with her on the sidewalk of South Broadway in Getty Square, but when I asked her about them, she thought they were a good idea. These cameras, mounted on police officers and recording their interactions with citizens hold the potential to create a new level of accountability, preventing them from targeting people based on no other cause than their race. Some organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union believe that with the implementation of this technology, egregious instances of profiling such as the one Angel described to me could be eliminated, or at least greatly reduced.
There’s been a lot of talk about instances of racial profiling and police accountability sparked by recent national events. While the tragic deaths of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown are far from unique in America’s long history of racialized violence, they have certainly reignited the conversation about race, violence, and law enforcement, and resituated them in the context of new technology. From Ferguson, Missouri to New York City, local law enforcement agencies have begun researching and implementing this technology, spending large amount of money to restore a reputation of accountability and legitimacy to their police work. But what about Yonkers? Despite its proximity to the camera savvy NYPD, cameras on the city’s police are noticeably lacking. According to a source in the Yonkers Police department, body mounted cameras have yet to be tested by the city’s police officers, though the department is currently researching this technology. Though the department makes use of car mounted dash cams, cameras mounted on officers seems far off. While bureaucracy, politics, and red tape may be holding off the implementation of these cameras, funding is of course a main concern (these cameras ain’t cheap!). To quote one member of the Services Commission in nearby Mt. Vernon about that city’s own testing of officer mounted cameras, “our primary concerns are vests and cars.” Until Yonkers and Mount Vernon’s basic law enforcement needs are met, officer mounted cameras may be a far off future.
But how do the people of Yonkers feel about this technology? Many of those I talked to knew little about the cameras, but thought they had great potential for increasing police accountability. “I don’t believe that all cops are bad cops,” said Sharon, a woman in Getty Square, “but I think these cameras will keep all the cops on their best behavior.” Jerry Blackstone, a 76 year old Hudson View resident put it more colorfully: “If you know someone’s watching you, you don’t pick your nose, you don’t scratch your ass. These cameras will make them [the police] think twice before displacing their aggression on innocent people.” Others expressed approval for the devices, but concern for their implementation. “I think they’ll turn them off! What’s to stop them?” remarked Dara, an elderly Yonkersite waiting for the 6 Bus. Shannon, a mother and Bronxville resident also at the bus stop, remarked that she had trouble reconciling the prevention of police brutality with the invasion of an officer’s own right to privacy. “Maybe they should just put cameras on certain individuals—officers with a history of aggression.”
Some in Yonkers are hesitant to trust these cameras, voicing concerns about the civil liberties of individual citizens interacting with camera wielding officers. Shavon, a journalism student and Bronx resident visiting Getty Square remarked that these cameras had just as much potential to open up or invade an individual’s privacy as they did to protect others from profiling. More vocal opposition came from two firefighters, one a former cop, who working outside the Bezack center on Alexander Street. “No comment—no!” the former cop said, exasperatedly, expressing his disapproval for the cameras. His partner had a little more to say: “Police often overlook minor illegal behavior at their own discretion, but with a camera they can’t do that. If a kid tells an officer to fuck off, he can’t beat him up, but he also can’t let him go either, he’s got to bring him in.” This firefighter expressed concern for individuals against incriminating themselves, especially if police were to enter their homes, cameras and all, something which even Jerry Blackstone might agree with (“I like cameras everywhere, except for my house!,” he remarked). Aside from the ethics of this form of surveillance and/or accountability, the firefighter also brought up an important point about the implementation of officer mounted cameras: “it would require a lot of police training, civilian education, and funding,” which might require resources out of reach for our city’s police. For the time being at least, the city of Yonkers seems to agree with him.