Machiavellian said:
If you cannot handle the job then you are unqualified to do it period. I have to say that is the biggest weakness to this defense you have of some people cannot handle being on camera. Its the job now and so if you cannot handle it, you should not be doing it. The thing is, the trust of the police is gone because the police did not properly handle the bad apples within their ranks. Instead of dealing with them as they should, they attempted to protect them at all cost. Once you lose trust, it takes a long time to gain it back. Every professional trade has gone through this from doctors, nurses, lawyers you name it. When trust is gone there needs to be measures to bring it back. So yes, every cop needs to have a camera running at all times for any incident between them and a suspect. We have seen on countless occasions of police abusing their power as well as corruptions within their ranks. Its not an easy job and everyone isn't cut out to be a police officer nor should they be. |
There's a lot of jobs filled by, to some degree, unqualified people, due to the shortage of qualified people. The reasons for a lack of qualified people are many, but it doesn't change the fact that it's either have enough cops, or have a worrisome lack of them. If the camera causes what would then seem to be unqualified cops to do their job poorly, what do you suggest? Defund the police instead?
If every company just fired their unqualified people, the US would have very different business and work culture, not to mention an economic meltdown due to lack of employee's period.
Cops having camera's is almost certainly the answer to the camera problem, since it seems the camera's aren't going away. The next step is for the media and the people to wait for the full story before jumping to conclusions. Plenty of times now after the uproar, have the police finally released their footage, proving the officer was in the right. As for when the footage proves the officer wrong, then all the more evidence to discipline them.