Sworn Testimony of Officer that Policy is to Turn Off Camera During Training
The New York Times reports, “[a]nother university officer who arrived shortly after the shooting, Eric Weibel, wrote in his report that Officer Tensing had told him that ‘he was being dragged by the vehicle and had to fire his weapon,’ and that ‘Officer Tensing stated that he was almost run over.’ A third officer, he wrote, said he had seen Officer Tensing being dragged.”
In every kind of criminal case from speeding tickets to murder, any witness is capable of testifying to something that is not true. This can happen for a variety of reasons, but the most frightening is that some witnesses have a belief that their “purpose” to punish the bad guys and protect the good guys transcends the need for truth in our justice system. I don’t have a solution. As our jury pools become more educated on the reality of professional witnesses (police) the need for police to do a better job of shoring up their story escalates.
In one of my recent trials a Fort Worth Police Officer testified (under oath) that the department policy is to turn off body-cameras when one officer is training another. You read that correctly, during training of new officers Fort Worth Police are instructed to turn off their body-cameras. Well, this is at least what the officer testified to.
When I have shared this information with others (including a municipal judge) the first reaction is, “What? It seems that training is the most important time to record and officer’s performance!” I would agree. But if you think about it, that really depends on how officers are being taught to perform.
If officers are being taught “how things really work” rather than how we would hope and expect officers to conduct themselves then it makes complete sense to turn off their recording device.
Despite the sworn testimony of the officer at trial, I’m not sure that I am convinced that Fort Worth Police have a policy to turn off cameras during training. So, I am going to try to find out. Today, I sent an open-records request to Fort Worth Police Administration. Let’s hope we get some honest information.
