FIELD REPORT

KEVIN McDONALD

Field Officer

Hidden danger of body-worn cameras

RECENTLY, A LONG-SERVING AND RESPECTED SERGEANT (we’ll call him Bob, not his real name) resigned from the WA Police Force after enduring a lengthy internal investigation into his on-duty behaviour that was based solely on the evidence of body-worn camera (BWC) footage. The footage, downloaded from his partner’s BWC, was a compilation of different incidents stemming from his work as a supervisor on Nightsafe in the Northbridge precinct over a two-year period.

In the absence of a complaint from any member of the public, Bob’s nomination as the subject officer of a historical BWC internal investigation was unusual. However, the practice is becoming more common. Through the blinkered lens of BWC, the conduct of police on the frontline is microscopically scrutinised, analysed and investigated. Instead of being a tool for individual professional development, investigations are often resulting in disciplinary outcomes.

During his two-year tenure on Nightsafe, Bob dealt with more than 500 incidents involving move-on notices, use of force, arrests and prosecutions relating to matters flowing from drug dealing, alcohol and drug abuse, acts of violence and other anti-social behaviour.

Drawn from those 500-plus incidents, internal investigators gave Bob a week to review 10 hours of BWC footage from 34 events. He was then interviewed under compulsion for more than five hours and ordered to account for his actions. Though Bob was unable to clearly recall specific details, or parts of incidents, by watching the footage he did remember some and answered questions honestly and as best he could recollect.

Given there was no complaint from any member of the public, no injury to any person, no witness statements, no other evidence and the passage of time, it became clear the procedural fairness of this process was, like the corroborating evidence in this matter, non-existent.

An article published in the June 2016 edition of the Australian Police Journal highlighted some of the concerns associated with BWC:

Given there was no complaint from any member of the public, no injury to any person, no witness statements, no other evidence and the passage of time, it became clear the procedural fairness of this process was, like the corroborating evidence in this matter, non-existent.

EVIDENCE IS ONLY TWO DIMENSIONS

Video footage of a police-citizen encounter is a twodimensional rendition of a three-dimensional event. The human brain processes the movement of people and objects differently than does a digital recorder. People’s perception of what’s happening in a given moment can be affected by physiological conditions such as tunnel vision and auditory exclusion – two affects that video isn’t going to have the ability to illustrate. This means an officer’s memory of the incident may not reflect the story the video tells. This reinforces the need to write a detailed police report that describes everything the officer has experienced that may not have been caught on camera.

FIELD REPORT

As body-worn camera footage is made available and viewed in court, consideration for what the officer was seeing, hearing and experiencing at the time of the event is what is important, not what the camera recorded. The camera simply cannot record the totality of the circumstances.

CAMERAS DON’T HAVE MEMORY RECALL

The camera will see only what’s happening in the encounter taking place in the moment, but the officer may have had multiple contacts with a subject – perhaps contacts during which the individual was resistive or combative. That experience may have given them insight into what the subject’s pre-attack indicators are – minute facial movements or other signs they’re about to assault the cop. The camera has no such database and can draw no such conclusions. When an officer makes a decision to use a certain tactic based on seeing a pre-attack indicator they’ve seen in a past interaction with a subject, that history with the subject should be included in their report.

CAMERAS DON’T HAVE FEELINGS

Similarly, when an officer contacts a subject physically, they can very often tell if the individual is going to be resistive simply by the tension in their muscles and their pulling away or pressing in against the contact. This physical connection may prompt the officer to pre-emptively use a force option to gain quick compliance, but to the camera’s eye it would look entirely unprovoked. This, too, should be written as descriptively as possible in the police report. The better you describe your reasons for your decisions, the more prepared and confident you’ll be if and when your day in court comes.

FIELDS OF VIEW DIFFER

Even when the officer’s eyes and the camera’s lens are perfectly aligned, the camera and the cop are not seeing the same scene. Most cameras offer about a 125-degree field of view. Under optimal, normal stress, most people’s useful field of view – the area used to gather and process visual data – is 55 to 60 degrees. During heightened stress – when tunnel vision kicks in – the field of view can get considerably smaller than 55 degrees. Officers involved in gunfights at close range often report they ‘saw nothing but the barrel of the gun’ and ‘it looked as big as a beach ball’. This means their useful field of view was probably just five degrees or less. The presence of a single view doesn’t guarantee that all the action will be recorded. When there are two, three or more cameras present, you have a higher probability of seeing what occurred, but there’s also a higher probability one camera will record one version of the truth while another camera records another.

Bob wasn’t required to author a report about any of the matters at the time or after they occurred and as you might expect, none of these cautionary caveats were considered when Bob’s conduct was assessed, and conclusions were drawn by internal investigators. In its conclusion, the Australian Police Journal article cites Graham v Connor 490 US 386 (1989):

That case decision stated that Court cautioned that “the ‘reasonableness’ of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.” As body-worn camera footage is made available and viewed in court, consideration for what the officer was seeing, hearing and experiencing at the time of the event is what is important, not what the camera recorded. The camera simply cannot record the totality of the circumstances.

Months later, Bob couldn’t remember much of what he saw, heard or experienced at the time of the events, so he was unable to give proper context or adequately rebut what the footage might have suggested. Unfortunately, the internal investigation process relied solely upon BWC footage and explanations were demanded. Attempts by Bob to explain the vision from incidents were summarily rejected, twisted to suit pre-conceived interpretations, allegations were sustained, disciplinary action commenced and all this combined to take its toll on Bob.

When the WA Police Force finally served its Notice of Intention to Remove on Bob, he’d lost confidence in the agency as a fair and caring employer and resigned. The wider community (not to mention his many trusted colleagues) lost the services of a fine, dedicated and experienced officer. The objectivity and procedural fairness of this internal investigation and its findings were also a casualty. It’s hoped this system failure is remedied quickly before too many more officers are put under this flawed microscope, lose confidence in the WA Police Force and follow Bob out of the door.

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01 NT Police Force Senior Constable Tammy Watson. 02 Run4Blue founders Natalee Cunningham and Tammy Watson with two of our directors, Brad Bird and Dave Flaherty. 03 WA Police Force Senior Constable Natalee Cunningham running 4 blue in Margaret River.

Lace up for police legacy

In May, Australian police officers took on the Run4Blue challenge for the fourth year running, lacing up their sneakers, raising $128,382 for police legacy groups and the families who fallen officers have left behind.

Senior Constable Natalee Cunningham of the WA Police Force and Senior Constable Tammy Watson of the NT Police Force created Run4Blue.

Each May, Run4Blue participants decide the number of kilometres they’d like to walk, run or wheel throughout the month and nominate the police legacy organisations they’d like to support with their registrations.

After spending months talking online through a running chat group for mums, Run4Blue’s founders met face to face at the 2018 Australasian Police and Emergency Services in Mandurah. Run4Blue was born in 2019 and it’s grown exponentially since then. So far, Run4Blue has raised more than $438,000 across Australia.

Senior Constable Cunningham said it was wonderful to see not only WA police officers from across the ranks but also members of the WA public registering for Run4Blue and supporting its worthy cause.

“This year, there was a high level of involvement from WA Police Force recruits. It was fun to see friendly rivalry among our newest officers. Getting a team at your station or business unit together to challenge another workplace to cover the greatest distance or raise the most money was a terrific way to get motivated, and the result is going to be another massive win for WA Police Legacy,” she said.

RUN4BLUE 2022 STATE TOTALS

1st Place NSW $31,760 2nd Place WA $23,769 3rd Place AFP $23,453 VIC $21,489 NT $15,982 TAS $6,643 QLD $2,878 SA $2,408 Total of $128,382 AUS

Senior Constable Cunningham said she’d never thought Run4Blue would become so big and expressed her thanks for everyone’s support.

“Policing is an inherently dangerous job. We all insure our houses and cars. Supporting your local policy legacy organisation is no different. It’s an insurance policy on which you don’t want to lodge a claim,” she said.

“Irrespective of how current or retired officers pass, it’s critical we support police legacy groups so they can support the families left behind. Run4Blue has really raised awareness of the important work police legacy organisations do and at the same time all its participants have benefitted from exercising regularly throughout May.” ■