Current Events > Should police dashcam footage be freely and easily available to the public?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Only issue I have with that is if police want to hide specific details of an incident to help investigation, and privacy of individuals who are on there given that many people involved will be victims.

Other than those, though, there's no reason people shouldn't be able to access their files online.

I would think that there would be some major privacy concerns with that. Arrests are public record of course, but an incident in which no one was arrested probably shouldn't be

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The problem is most dont want their video of most likely the worst day in their life, public and freely available

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Not until any trials for the suspects involved are finished.

You dont want to create any bias in potential jurors

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eston posted...

I would think that there would be some major privacy concerns with that. Arrests are public record of course, but an incident in which no one was arrested probably shouldn't be

Even during arrests there are issues. Like, imagine someone gets arrested for a domestic violent incident. Their victim will probably be on that footage. Same for rape victims, and a bunch of other potential problems. IDK what a good solution would be to that though, maybe have a waiting period for people to request the footage be withheld, or edited?

Middle hope posted...

Not until any trials for the suspects involved are finished.

You dont want to create any bias in potential jurors

It won't create bias if it isn't edited. Courts will have to deal with the fact that some people may have seen the footage, but that's going to be an extremely rare issue reserved mostly for high profile cases.

There should at least be channels in which requests can be made to have any video accessible after enough time, with some concessions made for privacy and ongoing cases. Though the ones making that determination should be an independent body with authority to supersede the police to release it if they deem it valid.

Nemu posted...

There should at least be channels in which requests can be made to have any video accessible after enough time, with some concessions made for privacy and ongoing cases. Though the ones making that determination should be an independent body with authority to supersede the police to release it if they deem it valid.

Latter is the big thing. Police need to lose any sort of power outside of conducting investigations and making arrests or giving fines.