Police departments are using AI to review bodycam footage, but unions are not happy about...

[DragonSlayer101]

In context: More than a decade ago, law enforcement authorities started equipping police officers with body-worn cameras to record their interactions with civilians. Over the last decade, police departments across the US have invested in bodycams to improve people's trust in the police and flag troublesome behavior by officers of the law.

Most police departments don't have the resources to sift through all their body-cam footage, meaning most of it remains unreviewed and unexamined. According to Axon, a company that provides body-cams for the police and cloud storage facilities for the videos they capture, the total database of footage currently stands at over 100 petabytes, which is similar in size to that of 25 million full-length Hollywood movies.

Since sorting through this mind-boggling database is an impossibility for humans, some police departments are now turning to AI to review the footage to identify risky behavior among officers. One of the pioneers in this area is the Patterson, NJ, police department, which took recourse to AI to sift through bodycam audio and video after police there shot and killed a local man with mental health issues last year.

As reported by ProPublica, Patterson PD has a contract with a Chicago-based software company called Truleo to examine audio from bodycam videos to identify problematic behavior by officers. The company charges around $50,000 per year for flagging several types of behaviors, such as when officers use force, interrupt civilians, use profanities, or turn off their cameras while on active duty. The company claims that its data shows such behaviors often lead to violent escalation.

Truleo is working with around 30 police departments across the country, and recently signed a contract with the NYPD for a pilot program to review the footage from its officers' bodycam videos. In addition to Truleo, other analytics providers like Dallas-based Polis Solutions are also working with various police departments to examine bodycam footage using AI software. Last year, the LAPD also announced plans to work with researchers from a number of universities to develop a new AI-powered tool to examine bodycam audio and video.

The use of AI-based solutions to examine body-cam footage, however, is getting pushback from police unions pressuring the departments not to make the findings public to save potentially problematic officers. In some cases, they have also been successful in stopping supervisors from disciplining officers based on video reviews. At least two departments - Seattle, WA and Vallejo, CA - were forced to cancel their Truleo contracts by their respective police unions.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/101759-police-departments-using-ai-review-bodycam-footage-police.html

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Body cams have to be one of the most keyed, drama-pilled things on planet earth.

On the one hand, the people clamoring for bodycams to fight abuse of power and the justice system got BTFOd when they were shown to not only deserve everything they got, but popular opinion often decides the officers and system didnt go far enough.

On the other, you have the unions terrified of misconduct being reported, and going out of their way to defend bad officers to the point of absurdity. These tools would be perfect to weed out bad employees, but unions gonna union.

And here I am watching this unfold with popcorn.

 

[i like foxes]

Hi guys ! I know it s not the place to post but I ve got recently issues with Techspot site - it doesnt auto refresh (the front page and so on) and I have to do it manually ! it started about a week ago .

 

[Thanthan]

Body cams have to be one of the most keyed, drama-pilled things on planet earth.

On the one hand, the people clamoring for bodycams to fight abuse of power and the justice system got BTFOd when they were shown to not only deserve everything they got, but popular opinion often decides the officers and system didnt go far enough.

On the other, you have the unions terrified of misconduct being reported, and going out of their way to defend bad officers to the point of absurdity. These tools would be perfect to weed out bad employees, but unions gonna union.

And here I am watching this unfold with popcorn.

Eh… I can think of plenty of times where no one though anyone ‘deserved what they got’… planting of evidence, murder, and other police crimes have been exposed partially due to bodycam footage…

 

[yRaz]

Hi guys ! I know it s not the place to post but I ve got recently issues with Techspot site - it doesnt auto refresh (the front page and so on) and I have to do it manually ! it started about a week ago .

This has been going on for me for a few weeks now. I'm order to get it to refresh I have to close my browser, load tech spot and then click the techspot logo in the top left corner. I use Firefox

 

[Thanthan]

Content moderation / analysis is definitely a good use case for large language models, and other similar systems, finding cases for manual review quickly. Now we just need YouTube to screen their advertisers advertisements for obvious fraud… pretty sure they have the tech xD

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Eh… I can think of plenty of times where no one though anyone ‘deserved what they got’… planting of evidence, murder, and other police crimes have been exposed partially due to bodycam footage…

For every time you can, I can think of 10+ cases where someone acts a total dickflute, fighting with officers and blatantly commiting crimes, while their families cry about what a good boy their precious angel is, or cases where the "police brutality" amounts to them handcuffing someone who clearly wants to throw punches and bashed their head on any solid surface as a hobby.

Personally I think any time a family claims their child didnt do anything, the bodycam should be played on the news for everyone to see. Shame some people into behaving.

This has been going on for me for a few weeks now. I'm order to get it to refresh I have to close my browser, load tech spot and then click the techspot logo in the top left corner. I use Firefox

Happens to me on edge, chrome, firefox, and brave mobile.

 

[lonetac]

The police will fight any form of oversight as it stops their blatant and continued abuse of power.

As the police always say "if you have nothing to hide, why wont you show us?" That applies to you too Mr. Officer.

The only way you could have a problem with this is if you think police should be able to abuse their power unchecked. I am not sorry but if you are the only profession in the country that has an open license to murder people then you need to be held accountable and ensure its not being done unnecessarily. If you cant handle the job, you shouldnt be in the profession.

You can support your police and still hold them to high standards.

If it actually shows the police officer needed to murder the person due to a threat on their life and not just a minor inconvenience for pack of smokes, show us so we can believe the officer acted in good faith. Its a win/win for everyone.

 

[lonetac]

This has been going on for me for a few weeks now. I'm order to get it to refresh I have to close my browser, load tech spot and then click the techspot logo in the top left corner. I use Firefox

try deleting cache and browsing history. I had this problem months ago but it eventually went away and I think that was the reason why.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

The police will fight any form of oversight as it stops their blatant and continued abuse of power.

As the police always say "if you have nothing to hide, why wont you show us?" That applies to you too Mr. Officer.

The only way you could have a problem with this is if you think police should be able to abuse their power unchecked. I am not sorry but if you are the only profession in the country that has an open license to murder people then you need to be held accountable and ensure its not being done unnecessarily. If you cant handle the job, you shouldnt be in the profession.

You can support your police and still hold them to high standards.

If it actually shows the police officer needed to murder the person due to a threat on their life and not just a minor inconvenience for pack of smokes, show us so we can believe the officer acted in good faith. Its a win/win for everyone.

The only leeway I will give them is that people today have totally lost their minds. Remember that stabbing incident in columbus that was on the news? Officer saw a girl mid stab of another, and shot her. People began screaming the usual. Hes a racist, sexist, blah blah blah. Bodycam came out, showed that in fact she was not only mid stab but was starting at the officer. Totally justified use of force. The screaming only intensified trying to get him fired and locked up.

 

[lonetac]

The only leeway I will give them is that people today have totally lost their minds. Remember that stabbing incident in columbus that was on the news? Officer saw a girl mid stab of another, and shot her. People began screaming the usual. Hes a racist, sexist, blah blah blah. Bodycam came out, showed that in fact she was not only mid stab but was starting at the officer. Totally justified use of force. The screaming only intensified trying to get him fired and locked up.

Exactly. As the body camera showed what happened here, whats the issue requiring it everywhere?

We can all cite examples from either side of this argument so its a win/win when the camera footage is used to determine if the officer was in the right or not or if the person was posing a life threatening crime that needed to be murdered.

There are plenty of examples we can cite that show police abusing their power. There are plenty of examples where police need to use force and camera's help answer the question instead of giving them an open license to murder someone and claim their life was threatened when it turned out the person was unarmed and hands were up and they still shot them.

Police are just flawed humans like the rest of us with their bias's and all that. They are human. No power should run unchecked and unmonitored. I have tons of power at my company and they have tons of controls to make sure I dont abuse it. Considering what police are tasked with and allowed to do, it makes absolute no sense they wouldnt be monitored.

it keeps both sides honest.

 

[godrilla]

Body cams have to be one of the most keyed, drama-pilled things on planet earth.

On the one hand, the people clamoring for bodycams to fight abuse of power and the justice system got BTFOd when they were shown to not only deserve everything they got, but popular opinion often decides the officers and system didnt go far enough.

On the other, you have the unions terrified of misconduct being reported, and going out of their way to defend bad officers to the point of absurdity. These tools would be perfect to weed out bad employees, but unions gonna union.

And here I am watching this unfold with popcorn.

Knowing a union is involved, sometimes it's more simple than this. If the ai will contribute to less human power hours worked then the unions get less in Union fees. I was in a union for 8 years . From my experience unions really don't care about the individuals but more about them fees.

 

[hahahanoobs]

If AI is the best tool for the job then that's what you go with.

 

[hahahanoobs]

The police will fight any form of oversight as it stops their blatant and continued abuse of power.

One of the pioneers in this area is the Patterson, NJ, police department, which took recourse to AI to sift through bodycam audio and video after police there shot and killed a local man with mental health issues last year.

Truleo is working with around 30 police departments across the country, and recently signed a contract with the NYPD for a pilot program to review the footage from its officers' bodycam videos. In addition to Truleo, other analytics providers like Dallas-based Polis Solutions are also working with various police departments to examine bodycam footage using AI software. Last year, the LAPD also announced plans to work with researchers from a number of universities to develop a new AI-powered tool to examine bodycam audio and video.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

If the police are afraid of their own (police) supervisors reviewing the video of what they do, they obviously think they are doing bad, *bad* things.

This is not the press or a mob crying for justice. It is the their own peers with more time on the job deciding if they stepped over a line or not.

That is the absolute minimum of accountability that we should accept as a society of those sworn "to serve and protect".

 

[Theinsanegamer]

If the police are afraid of their own (police) supervisors reviewing the video of what they do, they obviously think they are doing bad, *bad* things.

This is not the press or a mob crying for justice. It is the their own peers with more time on the job deciding if they stepped over a line or not.

That is the absolute minimum of accountability that we should accept as a society of those sworn "to serve and protect".

Because management NEVER abuses their power to screw somebody over at work, to fire people they dont like at a personal level, or blackmail people. Our superiors are always morally superior and we should have blind trust in them.

Exactly. As the body camera showed what happened here, whats the issue requiring it everywhere?

We can all cite examples from either side of this argument so its a win/win when the camera footage is used to determine if the officer was in the right or not or if the person was posing a life threatening crime that needed to be murdered.

There are plenty of examples we can cite that show police abusing their power. There are plenty of examples where police need to use force and camera's help answer the question instead of giving them an open license to murder someone and claim their life was threatened when it turned out the person was unarmed and hands were up and they still shot them.

Police are just flawed humans like the rest of us with their bias's and all that. They are human. No power should run unchecked and unmonitored. I have tons of power at my company and they have tons of controls to make sure I dont abuse it. Considering what police are tasked with and allowed to do, it makes absolute no sense they wouldnt be monitored.

it keeps both sides honest.

Perhaps the last bit escaped you? "The screaming only intensified trying to get him fired and locked up."

Gee I wonder why officers dont want to deal with a public full of room temp IQ screechers that see ANYTHING happen to their baby and cry/harass/stalk the officers and their families for doing their job.

 

[Endymio]

The police will fight any form of oversight as it stops their blatant and continued abuse of power.

There are tens of thousands of police departments across the US alone; most are readily adopting this technology. The only counter-examples given in the article are two union-dominated departments, both on the deep Blue Left Coast.

 

[wiyosaya]

For every time you can, I can think of 10+ cases where someone acts a total dickflute, fighting with officers and blatantly commiting crimes, while their families cry about what a good boy their precious angel is, or cases where the "police brutality" amounts to them handcuffing someone who clearly wants to throw punches and bashed their head on any solid surface as a hobby.

I'm sure you think you can think of 10+ cases where, as you say, someone was acting like a dickflute, however, there is at least one case where I would not doubt you think the man acted like a dickflute, however, the officer, and his buddies were convicted in court despite the suspect acting like a dickflute. A suspect acting like a dickflute is not a license for any "officer of the peace" to kill the suspect. As @lonetac said, what's the issue with requiring the use of body cameras? Filmed evidence has at least the possibility of keeping both sides honest, and personally, I don't see why any police department or individual officer would object to body cameras and the review of the footage on a regular basis. Reviews like that present the opportunity to improve procedure.

 

[wiyosaya]

There are tens of thousands of police departments across the US alone; most are readily adopting this technology. The only counter-examples given in the article are two union-dominated departments, both on the deep Blue Left Coast.

Ah yes, Endy. Throw a political strawman onto the fire.

 

[lonetac]

Because management NEVER abuses their power to screw somebody over at work, to fire people they dont like at a personal level, or blackmail people. Our superiors are always morally superior and we should have blind trust in them.
Perhaps the last bit escaped you? "The screaming only intensified trying to get him fired and locked up."

Gee I wonder why officers dont want to deal with a public full of room temp IQ screechers that see ANYTHING happen to their baby and cry/harass/stalk the officers and their families for doing their job.

The officers can be the room temp IQ screechers murdering people in cold blood. They are just people like anyone else.

If they want a license to kill, record it so the courts can review every single instance of a cop murdering someone. Let them decide. Plenty of examples of folks with their arms up complying with police who get shot and murdered.

It keeps both sides honest. The only person who doesnt want this is the one who thinks police should have unfettered, uncontrolled and unsupervised power to murder people in cold blood and claim their life was in jeapordy. And dont get me wrong, many times it is. But giving some one that power unchecked is an absolute laughable stance that you are taking.

If you cant handle folks criticizing your work, then you are not qualified for the job. If I cried like that over the controls in place and oversight I have at work to ensure I am not breaking the law and rules the company wants me to follow, I wouldnt be working there. Police are no different and should be held to accountable standards.

 

[lonetac]

Ah yes, Endy. Throw a political strawman onto the fire.

There is always one.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Because management NEVER abuses their power to screw somebody over at work, to fire people they dont like at a personal level, or blackmail people. Our superiors are always morally superior and we should have blind trust in them.

You are so bad a debating issues. A) you don't read what other people write and just spout off whatever bumper sticker saying comes into your mind, regardless of if it is on point. B) you constantly make logical fallacies in your arguments.

E.g., Your flawed argument in a different context: because seatbelts have NEVER not failed to save people... we shouldn't use them.

I wish Techspot had a block user option.