Glitches Push Once-Heralded Police Video Systems Into Disfavor

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

The Irvine Police Department last month removed recording equipment from all its cars amid concern that unreliability of cameras might be used by defense attorneys in alleging 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 inside some cars after the beating of black motorist Rodney G. King was caught on video by a bystander. The Christopher Commission report, which looked at ways to improve the Los Angeles Police Department after the beating, concluded that installing video cameras would keep an impartial eye both on the police and the public.

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 technological problems.

Right now, none of the department’s 1,000-plus patrol cars has working cameras, said 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 than the old ones.

“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.”

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

“If there’s a breakup 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. The recorder is placed 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, cites several cases in which officers across the country tried to disable the equipment.

In a report Maghan co-wrote earlier this year for the Chicago Police Department, he cites an internal audit stating that some Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies tried to sabotage the cameras when they were installed. Since then, 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 said that officers’ resistance had nothing to do with removal of the cameras and that the recorders simply didn’t work correctly.

The Irvine system required an officer 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 video.

In one recent incident, an Irvine officer was driving a patrol car with siren and lights turned on when he collided with another motorist. Afterward, the officer discovered that 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 annually to repair its cameras. About five of the department’s 32 cameras are “weak,” said Sgt. Steve Matson.

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,” to eliminate doubt, he said.

Manufacturers and video experts cite two areas where equipment most often fails: quality of the audio feed and the transmitters that allow officers to begin recording when they are outside their cruisers.

“The Achilles’s heel of any in-car video system is the transmitter because it is 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 report significant glitches but have decided the benefits outweigh the problems.

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 that 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, “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.”