The Always-On Police Camera
Body cameras that automatically activate in response to the sound of gunfire could forever change people's expectations about public spaces.
Last summer, Baltimore police officer Richard Pinheiro submitted body-camera footage as evidence in a drug bust. In Pinheiro’s video, filmed on an Axon Body 2 Camera, he wanders through a junky backyard for a few moments before spotting, among the detritus, a discarded soup can. He picks it up and pulls out a small baggie of white pills that he and the two other officers would later claim belonged to the suspect. Pinheiro and the other officers arrested the man, then submitted the evidence against him—the baggie, their testimony, and the video—to the Baltimore Police Department.
What Pinheiro and the other officers didn’t seem to realize was that the Axon II Body Camera has a “failsafe” feature. The camera is always on and always saves
