Police State USALOS ANGELES, CA — A scandal has been discovered inside the LAPD, in which nearly half of the squad cars in one division had their recording equipment tampered with, making accountability more difficult for the dozens of officers involved. The troubling discovery was exacerbated by police supervisors who made little effort to keep the oversight commission informed.
An audit of the Southeast fleet showed that out of about 160 vehicles, 72 were discovered to have had antennas removed, the LA Times reported. The antennas are part of a system that allows cruiser footage to be accompanied by detailed audio, even when the officer is far away from his vehicle. The audio is collected through microphones worn on officers’ clothing, which is sent back to the cruisers via a transmitters attached to officers’ belts.
The system won’t work properly if the cruisers have no antennas to receive the audio signals. The resulting dash-cam records come with unclear audio, meaning it is hard to be sure what the officers say to individuals while on foot.
The rampant antenna disappearance happened in a division that covers minority communities and has been plagued by allegations of abusive officers.
The Los Angeles Times wrote:
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck and other top officials learned of the problem last summer but chose not to investigate which officers were responsible. Rather, the officials issued warnings against continued meddling and put checks in place to account for antennas at the start and end of each patrol shift.
Members of the Police Commission, which oversees the department, were not briefed about the problem until months later. In interviews with The Times, some commissioners said they were alarmed by the officers’ attempts to conceal what occurred in the field, as well as the failure of department officials to come forward when the problem first came to light.
“On an issue like this, we need to be brought in right away,” commission President Steve Soboroff said. “This equipment is for the protection of the public and of the officers. To have people who don’t like the rules to take it upon themselves to do something like this is very troubling.”
Audio/video equipment was pitched as an assurance that the department could adequately monitor and “police” itself, after spending a decade under federal oversight due to past scandals. Those assurances are flimsy when officers are allowed to tamper with their own equipment and maintain their position of power unabated.
Checking officers’ integrity was one of the goals of the audio/video system. The discovery of equipment tampering is a validation of a lack of integrity on the part of the officers. The fact that the deceptive officers were given a pass, and continue to wield power over citizens, is troubling for the citizens of Los Angeles and does not speak well to the management of the LAPD.
How convenient; now it will be the police officer’s word against the word of the people they stomp into the ground and Taser… if the police victims actually live long enough to tell their side of the story.
they might want to put the equipment and antenna back on their cars, they might need the footage when all hell breaks loose on their a$$es