Glitches, Hitches, Videotape; Police Reassess Camera Use

Police video recorders were introduced as a bold experiment in officer accountability, but lately, technical glitches are prompting some agencies to reappraise the technology--or even dump it altogether.

In the most extreme example, the Irvine Police Department last month removed recording equipment from all its cars amid concern that unreliable cameras might be used by defense attorneys to allege cover-ups.

“You get into court and you present this type of evidence, and if your audio doesn’t work, it raises the question as to whether it was intentional,” said Irvine Police Lt. Al Muir, whose department installed the cameras five years ago. “If an officer goes into court and shows a video and it has no sound, a question that could be raised is: ‘Gee, why is there no sound?’ ”

In Los Angeles, police began placing cameras in some cars in the wake of the 1991 beating of a black motorist that was caught on tape by a bystander. The Christopher Commission report, which looked at ways to improve the LAPD in the wake of the Rodney King beating, concluded that installing video cameras would keep an impartial eye both on police and the public they serve.

But the department ended up pulling the cameras out a few years later when the manufacturer went out of business and officials could not find a way to fix the many technical problems.

Right now, none of the department’s 1,000-plus patrol cars has working cameras, according to Sgt. John Pasquariello. But officials are seeking bids to outfit one division--about 60 cars--with new cameras that they hope will do a better job.

“The main issue was that [the old equipment] wasn’t cop-proof,” Pasquariello said. “The machines didn’t hold up to constant use. The cameras get a lot of wear and tear . . . and they were often damaged.”

Some Officers Balked at Cameras in Cars

Video and audio feeds from patrol cars are increasingly used as evidence in court and in investigations of possible police misconduct, according to law enforcement experts. Both prosecutors and defense attorneys said the recordings can prove helpful if the recording works properly.

“If there’s a break up or gaps [in the tape], it reflects on the professionalism and the credibility of the officer,” said Mark Davis, an Orange County public defender. “If it’s not working right, it sort of undermines the whole deal.”

Mounted on a cruiser’s ceiling next to the rearview mirror, the camera connects to a video recorder in an armored box in the trunk. Although systems vary, most cameras begin recording automatically when the siren and lights are turned on.

Some officers initially balked when police departments began installing the recording devices a decade ago. Jess Maghan, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago, cited several cases in which officers around the country tried to disable the equipment.

In a report Maghan co-wrote earlier this year for the Chicago Police Department, he cited an internal audit stating that some Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies tried to sabotage the cameras when they were first installed. Since then, however, deputies have become more accepting of the equipment, he said.

“Despite being told that the camera was installed for their benefit, many officers retained an attitude that its purpose was to spy on them,” Maghan said.

Irvine police officials, however, said officer resistance had nothing to do with the cameras being removed and that the recorders simply didn’t work correctly.

The system used in Irvine required the officers to turn on the audio manually by pressing a switch in the uniform belt. During crunch time, however, officers sometimes forgot to turn on the sound, or the switch accidentally turned off when it brushed against clothing or objects.

At other times, the entire system would malfunction, producing neither sound nor picture.

In one recent incident, an Irvine officer was driving a patrol car with siren and lights turned on when the car collided with another motorist. After the accident, the officer discovered his camera had not activated properly and that nothing had been caught on tape.

“It’s frustrating because the system we have is so unreliable that they’re setting up false expectations for police officers, the public and defense attorneys,” said Irvine Police Chief Charles Brobeck.

The Fullerton Police Department spends between $15,000 and $17,000 repairing the cameras every year. About five of the department’s 32 cameras are “weak,” according to Sgt. Steve Matson.

Reliable Equipment Eludes Departments

In one instance, a man complained that a Fullerton officer had talked to him in a rough manner, Matson said.

On the tape of the incident, “you could see the posture and the mannerism of the officer. . . . He was very casual, had his hands in his pockets. But the audio wasn’t there . . . so you don’t know what the officer was saying,” Matson said.

Although the complaint was dismissed, “it would have been nice to have the audio in that instance” to eliminate doubt, Matson said.

Manufacturers and video experts cited two areas in which equipment most often fails: in providing an adequate audio feed and in transmitting properly when officers record after they are outside their cruisers.

“The Achille’s heel of any in-car video system is the transmitter, because it’s used more than anything else,” said Tom Mosley, an executive at International Police Technologies, a company that manufactures police cameras. “The transmitter is not made for combat.”

Other cities such as Newport Beach and Beverly Hills also report significant glitches but have decided the problems are outweighed by the benefits of the recordings.

Newport Beach Police Sgt. Mike McDermott cited a case in which a woman was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving a couple of weeks after the cameras had been installed. After the arrest, the woman claimed the arresting officer sexually assaulted her. She repeated the allegations to her employer, who threatened to take the allegation to the FBI.

The employer “comes in here, steaming mad and verbally abusive,” McDermott said. When officers played the tape of the arrest for him, however, “he walked out of here with his tail between his legs.”

But when the equipment doesn’t work, others say it puts police credibility on the line.

“You’re not getting the full picture. What about those two minutes where the audio cut out or was unintelligible?” said Beverly Hills Police Lt. Ed Kreins. “Those cause concerns because we would like to have the full picture.”

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Times staff writer Jack Leonard contributed to this report.